Mass Explosions
by MrNot
Summary: In the future, most races do not think of death and explosions as "funny" or as "a nice afternoon". Mankind is not most races. There will be punching and things blowing up. Everything else follows from that.
1. Chapter 1: Meet Our Heroes

I do not own Mass Effect or Borderlands. They are owned by Bioware and Gearbox Software/ 2K Games respectively. Everything else belongs to their respective authors. Now, on with the story!

* * *

"Well gentlemen, I ,for one, am glad that we have been cooped up together for the last few days. Indeed, I am overjoyed that I have been unable to go back to my loving wife and children and instead have been granted the pleasure of your company." said a wiry, clean shaven man.

"You know Udina, you can -bleep- yourself with a -bleep- while your -bleep- -bleep- of a wife -bleep- herself with a -bleep- -bleep- -bleep- -ing -bleep-! None of us want to still be here, but that -bleep- of a Council wants a list of -bleep- -ing Spectre candidates, and I'll be -bleep- -ed if we don't take advantage of this for all it's worth!" The grizzled military man's speech was infested with the type of censoring that would be typical in a R-rated movie re-released for a younger audience, yet managed to deliver all of its intended vitriol.

" Ah yes, Hackett, how are you enjoying that censor box wired to your vocal cords? You know, the Alliance asked me what they should do about your _problem_ with diplomacy. I do believe that my little suggestion was much better than their intended solution. _PR training_". The last two words were said with no small amount of disgust.

"WHY YOU LITTLE-!"

"Gentlemen, Gentlemen, you can't fight here, this is a war room." The third man cut off his colleague, both in the middle of his outburst as well as his attempt to leap from his chair and strangle Donnel Udina to within an inch of his life, and then perhaps a little further. "Look, we're all at our limits, but just try and last a little longer: we cut out a few more names, hire a few assassins to clear out someone else's choices, and we'll have a short enough list to satisfy the Council."

" You make a good point Anderson, I suppose I can bless you both with my presence for an hour or two more"

" FINE! But as soon as that list goes through to that -bleep- Council, I'm taking that -bleep- over there and -bleep- -ing his entrails with a -bleep- and a -bleep- and finally I'll -bleep- his -bleep- with a rusty spoon!"

" Yes, yes, whatever. I really don't care anymore what you two do as long as I don't have to get involved. Now, what are the remaining candidates that we probably WON'T immediately have killed after this meeting?"

" Well, there is Steven-" Udina began, only to be cut off by Hackett.

"NOPE! Having him killed with a broadsword right after I get out of this -bleep- of a -bleep-. There can only be ONE important Steven, and it isn't going to be him!"

"Fine then, what about Saratoga Khan? Let's see here: trained as a commando, has a military background; her mother, Hannah Khan, serves on the SSV Kilimanjaro, and despite her _difficulties_ with orders, she is very effective getting things done.."

" Wasn't she the one who managed to -bleep- that thresher to teeny little pieces with all those transports full of explosives? That was -bleep- -ing AWESOME

"Yes, that was her all right" said Anderson checking his notes, " She was also noted as offering to, and I quote, "Punch the fucking daylights out of any mother-fucking asshole who has a problem with the fact that I "borrowed" those transports to save their lives". Spectre status will probably suit her well; they are, after all, supposed to operate all on their own."

"Very well, she's number one on the list." Udina scanned the paper he had in front of him, ignoring the little doodles he had of a dead Hackett, " Next, I think we can all agree that Nathan Lovel is suitable. A bit of a rough case, grew up on one of the border planets. One hell of a crack shot, and I don't think I need to remind anyone here of his actions in rooting out those pirates over on Echo."

"It was a -bleep- of a -bleep- over on Echo, but he made those -bleep- -ing Batarians pay! He's got my -bleep- vote!"

"Alright, fine, I agree, let's recommend Lovel, he's got the results to back him up, and people like him, they see him as tough, ready and willing to make his enemies pay." Anderson conceded.

_Finally,_ thought Udina, "Now there is room for one more person, but since I don't see anyone else that one of us won't have murdered on principle, I think we're done here."

Udina and Hackett both rose from their chairs, visibly relieved that they could finally leave, only to be stopped by Anderson who motioned for them to sit down.

"There is... one more candidate, that I can think of, and I think he would make a good fit."

At this point, Udina was too aggravated to care. Did Anderson really think that he would spend several days arguing with the gorilla that was Hackett to agree to a last minute addition?

"You can just forward that name to one of several mercenary squads I have on commission, you'll save us both time that way."

"They won't be able to handle him." That got Udina's attention. Someone that Anderson was sure could survive anything that he, Donnel Udina, could send at him? No one was that good. No one except...

" No, out of the question. I'll admit, he does have the blood of heroes in him, but we absolutely cannot advocate him. And if he does get picked over Khan and Lovel, he's not even military! Do you have any idea what kind of controversy would come about? The public would start believing all those conspiracy theories, not to mention what all the corporations will do ! They won't just stop at killing us, Anderson, they'll make sure to raze the universe of our existence!"

" Hey, wait, are we talking about that -bleep- of a -bleep..." Even Hackett, as unrestrained as he normally was, could not help the worry from inching into his voice.

"They want our best, and goddammit, no one can deny his skills. And if we don't nominate him, everyone is going to start talking about how we're afraid of that group**.** Not to mention the fact that the Council will take it as a sign that we can't control our own people. I don't think I need to remind you two of how much we need to stop the Council from making side deals with corporations."

"Fine, but whatever happens from a result of this... it'll be on your head, Anderson"

"I'll have to take those odds." Anderson responded. " So it's agreed then, the third Spectre candidate that we'll nominate will be..." He paused for dramatic impact...

"Spit it the -bleep- out, or I'll do it for you!"

"Fine, fine. Our last candidate is... Shepard."

* * *

As a Council Spectre, Nihlus Kyrik was used to waiting long periods of time for his target to appear. He was also used to assignments where practically everything seemed to be damned by the Spirits. He was not, however, used to the anomaly that were humans. They were relative newcomers to the galactic stage, but that did not seem to encourage them to slow down and show respect to the older, more experienced species. Instead, they surged out like hungry varren itching for fresh meat, taking whatever planets were available for colonization, and several that weren't.

The Council would normally have intervened over those planets in the Skyllian Verge, but the Batarians hadn't been doing anything with them, nor could they provide any concrete plans for the region in question, and the Council had hoped to get the Batarians to make concessions in exchange for the Council _convincing_ the humans that it wasn't in their best interests to take the contested planets. The Batarians, however, felt that they should not have to beg to keep what was rightfully theirs, and so they decided to drive the humans out by force. Of course, the Batarians were not stupid enough to openly declare war on the humans, which would have given the Council the excuse it needed to intrude in the business of two species that were not a part of itself. Instead, and Nihlus had seen the STG reports to back his claims up, the Batarians had decided to fund pirates and raiders to indulge in their brutality against the humans in an attempt to drive them out. Pure foolishness in his opinion, the Batarians had to have known about the Relay 314 conflict between the Turians and the Humans. Did they think that the Turians had been fooling around? There was a reason that humans were currently an independent race and not another client of the turians.

No matter their reasoning, the Batarians awoke a veritable hornet's nest, as the human saying went. Human citizens in newly colonized planets, or borderlands as they tended to call them, were used to fighting for their lives against the bandits who tended to migrate away from any bastion of law and order. The human bandits, by the way, did not appreciate the competition, nor did they like the fact that attention was being drawn to them. The pirates, used to having to overcome small militias at best, were caught off guard by the fact that wherever they landed, they were welcomed by hails of gunfire. Overcoming that, they had to deal with people who felt that sanity was an insult to their very being. Nihlus had an involuntary shudder at that. He had assaulted bandit compounds to rescue VIPs who had decided to go "adventuring" or otherwise recover things that the bandits had somehow stumbled over. If he was lucky, he would just be dealing with those who thought there was nothing better than emptying their clips in a warm body, and would turn on their fellows for a few laughs; if he was unlucky, there were the ones who somehow thought kamikaze suicide by grenade was a winning strategy, or worse, the ones who didn't need their heads that attached to their bodies.

To their credit, the Batarian funded pirates and slavers had stuck around despite this, their motivations switching from profit to making the humans pay. The universe, however, was not done with them, and they finally managed to anger the human mega-corporations that were doing business in the area. That... had pretty much spelled the end for Batarian funded action in the area. Those corporations had managed to turn cruelty into an art form, and had the military force to show it to the slavers first hand. The Batarians did not even manage their goal of weakening the Systems Alliance military as the corporations stepped in to defend their interests.

The corporations were another interesting point about the humans. They wielded power that would never be allowed to companies under Council protection: they were barely regulated by the human's governing body, the Systems Alliance. To this end, the Council had reached out to them, hoping to secure for themselves some of the Eridian technology that humans used instead of Prothean artifacts, but that had led to a complete dead end. That seemed to be the one thing that all humans were united in, they were loath to part with any Eridian artifacts no matter what. Personally, Nihlus didn't blame them that much; the Council races had a similar view on Prothean relics: any sharing of such things often came attached with numerous political strings, and were never without a heavy guard from the race that claimed ownership.

Just then, a sudden noise interrupted Nihlus from his musings. A ship had came into the private dock that he was currently waiting in. He glanced at the title to ensure that it was the one that he had been waiting for, and sure enough, he noted the name, the _SSV Normandy_ inscribed on the side. Frigate sized and utilizing a new stealth system, the _SSV Normandy_ represented an olive branch between the Turian and Human races. The best engineers of both races had come together to create a new class of frigate, and had carefully selected personnel to crew the ship. Nihlus himself was only going to be a temporary passenger, but was to help create an additional link between the two cultures: he was to judge if one of three noted humans were to be considered for Spectre status. Personally, Nihlus thought he would end up finding one of them worthy; the odds of an entire species not having one elite individual was statistically impossible. The ship completed its docking procedure, and clamped securely to the berth. Slowly the door opened, and Nihlus wondered whether he would be greeted by a human or a fellow turian. However, he was taken completely by surprise by what greeted him from the ship.

"YES!YES!YES! WE ARE HERE! HERE! HERE! Here?" The last word was spoken with a note of confusion, as if the speaker had come to question the words that were coming out of his mouth. "Where is the badass bird?! I gotta meeessssaaaggge for hiiiiiiimmmm!" This last phrase was spoken in an eery sing-song tone of voice, but Nihlus was too used to strange situations to allow himself to be taken back. Looking at the speaker, he noted that they wore a mask with curious markings on it.

" I am Nihlus Kyrik, are you the one that has come to greet me? I don't suppose you are Khan, Lovel, or Shepard are you?"

" You assume I am the SHEPARD? THE ONE WE HAIL? You're in for a WORLD of hurt for that mistake! Shepard's gonna smash you . Shepard's gonna trash you. Shepard's gonna size you up and cut you down. Shepard's gonna, Shepard's gonna-" Whatever the human intended to say was cut off by a gunshot that pierced their leg and caused them to writhe on the ground in agony.

" That's MR. Shepard"

**Blitz Shepard**

-Isn't this guy supposed to be our hero?-

The shooter came out the opening, and turned to face Nihlus. He was tall for a human, with black eyes and short hair. In addition, he had what Nihlus had learned was called a buzz-axe attached to the back of his pants. "I suppose you're Nihlus Kyrik? I'm Shepard, here to welcome you to the _SSV Normandy,_ Lovel and Khan would have joined me, but some issues came up that needed their attention. Follow me, I'll introduce you to the rest of the crew. We already have quarters set aside from you, but I hope you don't mind sharing the same food as the rest of the turians we have aboard."

It was at times like these, Nihlus was glad of his experience. Shepard didn't seem too bothered by his casual shooting of another, so he too tried to ignore it, but could not resist turning to get a better look at the downed human.

"Don't bother with that one, Psychos only learn through pain. I will, however, tell you that the few you'll see on the ship listen to me, and only me, so don't bother trying to order them about."

Nihlus nodded slowly along with what the human was saying, but could not help wondering, what type of people were the human side of the crew like?

* * *

Stereotypes sucked. Sometimes, admittedly, they were fun, like when people thought they could drink you under the table just because you were a woman. Most times, however, they led to bullshit situations, like people assuming just because you were a commando who used a turret, you were some kind of engineering genius. Such was the situation a red headed woman currently found herself facing.

"FOUND THE PROBLEM!" she screamed, " You fuck-heads! How many times have I told you? Don't eat food over the console!" The engineer she was addressing looked away sheepishly.

"Do you guys know what kind of shit we would have been in if the gravity devices had completely failed while we were out in deep space? The answer is deep. Deep Shit." The speaker crawled out from underneath the console and drew herself to her full height, an imposing 5' 4".

**Saratoga Khan**

-She ain't your friend, palooka-

"For being such dumb-asses, I get a couple of punches on each of you. Come on, stand up straight and don't take it like a pussy." The engineers in charge of the gravity machines tried to back away, but found themselves cornered, and surrendered to the idea that they would be unable to feel their arms for the week. However, before she could land a decent hit on one of them, a heavyset man with what seemed to be a metal helmet bolted onto his shoulders muscled into the room.

"Message for pretty lady! Badass bird on board! Shepard want you coming. Now" The Goliath managed to somehow complete the message, which from his body language, seemed to surprise him as much as everybody else.

"What?! Fucking shit! Alright, I gotta go check this fucker out. You assholes get off for now, but keep your arms fucking ready." Saratoga turned and left the engineering core, and made her way to the elevator. Noticing that the Goliath had followed her, she faced him and asked, "Lovel, he'll have to know this too, can you go get him?" Most people would have been surprised by her speech lacking her usual swears, however, the fact that she had personally seen this goliath go into a berserk rage and massacre an entire squad of Eclipse mercenaries, she felt obliged to be particularly nice to him.

" Was told first." Saratoga whirled around quickly, barely suppressing a shout as she saw the speaker, a tall figure clad in armor, step out of some nearby shadows.

**Nathan Lovel**

**-**Enemies never see him coming-

"Fucking Christ, Lovel, you scared me, you gotta stop this habit of _lurking_ on the ship. It's goddamn creepy!" Saratoga snapped at him,

" Apologies. Next time shall announce my presence with parade and streamers for the scared little girl"

"My turret'll scared-little-girl you, you assfuck."

"Future will decide. Trade jibes later. Now, go see Turian Spectre that we have been told to ferry about like cheap taxi."  
" Fine, whatever."

Despite how the exchange went, most people on the ship agreed that this was one of Lovel's better relationships on the _SSV Normandy_. It was to be expected. Not only was he the infamous "Wraith of Echo", there was also the fact that he was a Number, a member of a secretive group that never removed their armor in the presence of others. In fact, common opinion was that they never removed their armor at all. However, that was a minor rumor compared to many of the things that were said about what they might be. The elevator slowly ascended to the main floor of the Normandy. Briefly, Saratoga wondered whether or not to begin a conversation with Lovel, but decided against it; there was no way the elevator ride would be long enough for them to finish any discussion in time. It was a bit regrettable though, she knew nothing about him, not even his name. Nathan Lovel was just a name that the Alliance higher-ups had given for the press to reduce any questions about why a Number was working for the military. For convenience's sake, they had been calling Nathan a he, but no one knew how accurate that particular judgment was . However, he wasn't the worst crew member; if Saratoga had to pick, it would have to be that bastard Shep-

"And these are Nathan Lovel and Saratoga Khan. In case you were wondering, Lovel's the one in the armor and Khan's the one with the beret."

And there the fucker was. Along with a turian, must be Nihlus. Ah, shit, might as well introduce herself. "Pleasure to meetcha, Name's Khan, Saratoga Khan. I'm the XO of this ship"

" It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance XO, and I assume you are lieutenant Lovel? It is good to meet you as well."

" Likewise."

Shepard re-entered the conversation at this point. "Don't mind Lovel too much, he's very... taciturn."

"I tend not to judge soldiers by their words, but by their actions, I suppose I shall come to know you people very well in the coming days and weeks. Where is Captain Anderson? I shall need to have a chat with him."

"Khan can guide you to him, I need to deal with a few personnel issues."  
And there he went, taking the goliath with him. That mother-fucking asshole. Saratoga had her reasons for hating Shepard, some that were irrational, and some that were very irrational, but still, hey, one had to have some kind of illogical fallacies to rely on. Otherwise, you went mad trying to be a saint to every poor cocksucker down on their luck.

"Alright, follow me, Anderson's on the command deck." That turian was a quiet motherfucker. Not that surprising, considering he was supposed to be one of their very best. But still, she knew that he was following her, but unless she actually looked back, she had trouble believing herself.

"That module on your belt, I assume it is your primary support?" Ah, a question, finally some speech from the bird. "That's right, it's a turret, Dahl-make. You touch it, and we're not friends anymore. 'Course that is assuming that you don't accidentally activate it, and I'm left with swiss turian."

"Hmm, you have that much confidence in it then?"  
"I'd better. As a commando, deployable turrets are our bread-and butter. When you're behind enemy lines, and there's a thousand of their bastards tearing ass to get at you, you thank whatever you believe in that you got one of these. I've turned platoons into mincemeat with my baby here."

"I'll be sure to leave it alone then."

And that was it. Crap, did she say something wrong? Eh, what did it matter? They'd drop the bird off somewhere, make it back to port and get tasks to prove how humans and turians could work together like a bunch of different schoolkids shoved into Saturday detention. Well, they had managed to make it to the CIC. So, she pointed him at Anderson, and made her way back to the lower deck to speak to Lovel about their new guest. With his habit of lurking in dark corners, and the way that the turian crew had been so eager to have this damn Spectre on board, there was a good chance he had picked up some interesting information. She didn't bother trying to stick around and hear any stray threads of conversation: the crew members that normally surrounded Anderson had already got that covered. If she tried to intrude, she would have been instantly been marked as some kind of outsider. Stepping out of the elevator, she checked for Lovel, certain that he wouldn't have gone far, only to see no sign of him.

"Looking for someone?" To her credit, Saratoga did not jump or show any outward signs of stress. Of course, every internal system was screaming to shoot the ass. He had a goddamn _talent_ for scaring the hell out of people.

"Yeah, you. About our new passenger... you hear anything on one of your little 'walks' around the ship?"

" Rumor hear, rumor there. Supposedly took out entire Batarian slaving ring on one of Passeridae's moons. Another says he posed as a high-ranking member of the Blue Suns for over two months to kill a handful of their upper leadership. Nothing concrete. Nothing _certain_. All could be wrong. Don't know, can't know. We'll have to see and judge." This was probably the longest speech Saratoga had ever heard from the Number. He must be as curious about their passenger as she was. Might as well go grab Shepard and shake him down for information as well. As much as she disliked the man, she had to admit that his information networks were likely to best of anyone's on the ship. She knew where he would be too. He had left a bit too quickly, which meant that some problem had come up with his pet psychopaths. And if he had gone to deal with them, that meant he was in their corner of the ship, aka the cargo hold.

* * *

"Now gentlemen, as we can see, our good friend Slap here has demonstrated the completely wrong way to interact with newcomers to the ship. We do not ' shoot em real fast in the head, then leg it before the enforcers come'. For his stupidity, I have broken his arm in four places, and his leg in five. Would anyone care to give the right answer. Yes, you Chop." Shepard pointed to a random psycho who had raised his hand slowly.

"Shove a buzz axe into his throat and laugh?" At these words several others around began to nod their heads sagely, while stroking their chins. Of course that was the answer, it was so obvious now. Why hadn't they said that?

"No"

"EEAAGGHHH! MY PAIN IS A FOUNTAIN!"

"Next taker?"

There he was, disciplining those fuckers who worshiped the ground he stood on. She had to admit, Shepard had one hell of a record when it came to fighting, but she had never seen him _do _anything. Instead, she had seen him leave most of the fighting to his men. That had gradually reduced her excitement at fighting with him to a deep-running resentment of the man. However, she did give him credit for managing to reign in people that the majority of the galaxy had written off as complete wild cards. To be fair, you didn't have to be crazy to be a bandit, but it sure helped.

"Ah, Ms. Khan, a pleasure to see you. Well, gentlemen, your lesson in etiquette will have to wait. I must speak with the ship's XO." The group dispersed at his orders. To Saratoga, it looked like they divided into rings and were busy having punching matches. She had seen them do this before, but when she asked, they simply responded with the words, "Rule number 1", and walked away without giving any information away. Even breaking a few of their bones did nothing to help. And it came with the side effect of Shepard sticking his nose into her business, which was something that she definitely did not need.

"Well, how can I help you, XO Khan?" Even his damn politeness had become quite grating.

" Know anything about this Nihlus guy? No one seems to know anything but bullshit."

"All rumors contain a grain of the truth. But to speak perfect honesty, what I know for sure is that he was born to one of less settled planets of the Turian Hierarchy. Son of a mercenary, he was distrusted by his peers, but his unorthodox methods led to high success rates for his missions. To that end, he was eventually scouted to be a Spectre. One of their most decorated now."

Great. Someone who had something to prove who had managed to prove it. Those were the worst in her opinion. They felt that they had succeeded, so everybody should be able to do it as well.

"Anything else?"

Ugh, that damned politeness again. Well, he had helped her out, being rude would just be an asshole move. "Nah, I'm good."

"Very well then, if you don't mind, I need to get back to drilling my men on certain procedures. Luckily, I have spotted my laser drill while we were talking. I think this shall go faster than originally anticipated."

Saratoga walked away, and tried her very best to ignore the sounds of screams that emanated from behind her.

* * *

The Normandy suddenly had a sudden increase in speed that Saratoga had come to associate to the ship switching to full throttle and forcing the Chronos drive to full effect. That had been one of the main human contributions. Instead of relying on a pure mass effect core, they had provided a monstrous engine that worked by slightly misaligning the Normandy with its home dimension, allowing it to give a brief fuck you to the regular laws of physics. This allowed more power to be drawn to other areas on the ship, like the life-support systems or the shields.. The Normandy was also primarily a stealth ship, and so the less heat that was generated meant it took a longer time for the heat to build up before it needed to all be ejected.

Making her way to the pilot's seat, Saratoga noted the pilot seemingly tapping the controls at random. Turning to face him, she called his name:

"JOKER!"

**Joker**

-With a name like that, it's gonna be a long ride-

" 'EEYUP! You done called me Khan? Ah don't really know whatchu want, but if y'all gimme the word, ah'll get on it as soon as I git this job dun fer Captain Anderson". The thin bearded man turned around in his chair to face her. Khan had learned that he suffered from Vrolik's syndrome, which made his bones extremely brittle, yet he refused to accept any sympathy. It was unlikely he would have actually gotten any from the various people on board the ship, but still, she had to respect that spirit.

"First of all, I know you can speak better than that. Just because we might finally have a proper mission, it doesn't mean you get free range to slip back into Hodunk speak. Two, where the hell exactly is it that we're going?" Ah, that was another trait that bore mentioning. Joker was technically Joker Hodunk; his family had long since been disowned, but the mechanical genius that was all too common in the family had made themselves known in him.

"Well, Ah figger-" a glare from Khan immediately caused him to begin his sentence again, " I mean, I know where we're going is the Rimbor System. So, wherever we're going, it's not going to be a flat out assault. Corporations would be up our ass. Even with the protection we've got. So, my advice? Get prettied up. Chances are it's going to be a covert operation."

_Fuck. _One of those. Well, that'd explain the Spectre they had on board. He could cause trouble, or be discreet, and the Alliance would have someone to point fingers at if it all went to shit.

"I reckon' we gots bout a coupla hours 'for we git to there, so's you kin relaaax fer a bit."

Saratoga considered hitting him for falling back into the accent shortly after she had warned him not to, but decided to let him go in thanks for the information. Next time though, he would get punched twice as hard, Vrolik's syndrome be damned. But now, what to do? As irritating as it was for her to help repair equipment, she had to admit that it gave her something to pass the time with. It was one of the disadvantages about being called from her regular unit to serve on the damn special diplomacy ship, no fucking person to talk to. Everyone was too goddamn scared to talk to her, or was otherwise too damn annoying. That left the two people that had also been called from vastly different situations, Shepard and Lovel; Shepard's people didn't count because one, they were all lining up to suck his cock, and secondly, they were shithouse crazy to a man...thing. Lovel, on the other hand, did not so much converse with you as listen to you talk: it was good sometimes, but got on her nerves for the most part, and was not something she could stand right now.

Well, that left maintenance of her equipment, the shooting range, or wasting time on the extranet. Since she had re-calibrated her turret a few hours ago, might as well go put holes in targets. With the small sigh of a person resigned to barely staving off boredom, she went to go shoot. On her way to the shooting range, however, she found herself intercepted by Lovel.

"Busy?"

"Not at the moment. Whaddya want fucker?"

"Meeting. You, me, Shepard."  
"You're on some amazing shit right now if you think I'll talk to that-." She was cut off by a wave of his hand.

"Gripes noted, but do not care. Need conversation. Bigger than petty difficulties." This was odd, Lovel normally never gave a shit about anything from what she could observe. If something was this important to him, it was probably worth it to follow.

"Fine, whatever, let's go."  
"Good. Contacted Shepard already, Meeting in his room."

His room? Saratoga had never really though about that before. She assumed that he just piled in with the rest of his horde on the crappy beds that they had somehow sneaked into the ship. It made sense though, as much as she hated him, she had to admit that he was in charge of quite a few people, and it was rare that a commanding officer and his men would sleep in the same area. Following Lovel, she walked to a lower level of the ship and walked down a short corridor that she had never really paid attention to. Nathan stopped in front of her, and knocked on the only door. Strangely enough, there was the sound of a scuffle, followed by the sound of someone kicking something and a faint tinny voice saying, "A guest? Why, I simply must tidy up..."

"XO and Lieutenant, come in. I apologize for the lack of space, but there is only so much room one can get to themselves on a ship this size." The door had suddenly opened and Shepard was there to greet them. Saratoga looked inside and noted that while the room was not that large, it seemed bigger than it actually was because so much of it was bare. Aside from a bed and a small desk with a chair, there was nothing in the room, no other person who could have possibly been talking. Well, that certainly wasn't creepy as hell and would come back to bite them in the ass later. But now was not the time to wonder such questions, Lovel had gathered them all to talk about something

"So, the reason we are all gathered in my room is..."

"Discussion on Nihlus. Why is he here?" Well, now Saratoga knew for certain what the conversation would be about.

"I asked Joker about it. He says that he's got orders to bring us to Rimbor. Likely a corporation is doing something everyone's against, and Nihlus is how they're going to fix things."

" That's a fair possibility, but I doubt that's everything. I have a fairly decent idea of what Nihlus's true purpose is." Shepard interjected.

"Yeah? Mind informing us dumb-asses?  
"Well, thinking about the situation that we have been told so far, one can find several logical inconsistencies. For one, why would a Spectre ever be just a passenger on a ship? No matter what, they are meant to be secretive as well as work alone: the Council is acting completely out of character."  
"Yeah, well maybe they want to make us all fucking buddy-buddy so they're willing to send over one of their best. Ever thought of that asshole?"  
"Indeed I have, and for a while that satisfied me, but consider this, the _SSV Normandy_ all by itself should make a powerful statement. Adding a Spectre is unnecessary , and at this point, quite dangerous to the situation. If we succeed, the only thing to be recorded will likely be the fact that there was a Spectre on board, should we fail, everyone will note that even a Spectre could not make things succeed. Hence, I am certain there is something else there."

" All you've proven is that people are taking higher risks than normal. Maybe everyone's incredibly sure it'll go alright and are just putting the icing on the cake." While she said that, Saratoga was becoming more and more uneasy with Shepard's words. It had seemed a bit strange for such a secretive person to be scheduled for a mere transport.

"Politicians, greedy, not stupid. Must have reason." Well, there was Lovel speaking for the first time in the conversation.

"Precisely, and realizing that anything he does will be classified, we have to realize that there is one thing, and one thing only that would completely justify not only the risk in taking on a Spectre, but also the reason that they transferred us here from our normal posts. You have to agree that with our personalities, we make poor diplomats."

"Damn straight. So what's the big reason?"  
"Why, it is to make one of us a Spectre of course. As a decorated Spectre, it is unlikely people will question his judgment. And for one reason or another, it could be said that we are some of the best candidates for such a job. Humanity having a Spectre would show unprecedented unity between the Council and our race."  
"Interesting. A challenge. Shall we race?" Unless Saratoga was greatly mistaken, it seemed for the first time Lovel's voice had _excitement_ in it.

"Great, so we gotta impress the shitty bird, this'll be great."


	2. Chapter 2: Happy Fun Time Mission Start!

Ahhh, I'm back. Guess I was gone for a while. Thanks Life. Also, formatted Chapter 1, gaining website literacy is fun! Anyways, I should probably put a disclaimer here. I do not own Mass Effect or Borderlands. They are owned by Bioware and Gearbox Software/ 2K Games respectively. Everything else belongs to their respective authors. Now, on with the story!

* * *

"And...HEEEERE'S JOKER!" The ship came to a complete and sudden stop, causing Khan, as well as many others to suddenly lurch forward for an instant, as inertia took effect.

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!"

"Hey, ain't ma fault y'all didn't brace good. All systems are lookin mighty fine. Drift juuust a smidge less than 1500 K."

"1500 is good, your captain will be pleased." Following this compliment, Nihlus turned and walked away, likely going to meet up with Commander Anderson.

"That mother-" Joker began.

"Hold. Compliment exchanged. Yet rage? Why?" Nathan asked from the co-pilots seat. It was unused as Joker had somehow convinced the high command that he alone was necessary as a pilot.

"Y'all manage to flush the shitter when yer done, now that's good. I just leaped cross half the damn galaxy an' hit a target bout the size of a pin. That's awesome. Sides, nothing good comes wit a Spectre."

"Noted".

"Yeah, well he's allowed to take off points when you stop like a drunken bandit."

"Ah Sheeit. I mean, hello, XO Khan, uh, what kin-can I do fer-for you today." Joker stumbled out.

"Look, you managed to get us here. Whoop-de-fucking-do, you did the job of a pilot. Now I gotta go deal with the Spectre, so don't give me any horse-shit about being under-appreciated. You feeling me?"

" Y-Yes ma'am!"

"Good, now I am going on a debriefing, followed by some type of mission, and when I get back you better not be still bitching." Following her dress-down of the pilot, Khan turned to head back towards the CIC, but then stopped and shouted, "And don't think I missed you slipping into your accent, that's a punch!"

"Wait, what are you going to-OH GOD MY BONES, I NEED THOSE TO LIVE!"Joker was cut off as Khan struck him square in the chest.

"Man up, take an insta-health." Upon saying that, Khan turned around once more, but this time she actually left the cockpit.

"Is she always such a bitch?" Joker exclaimed while injecting himself with a red vial.

"Yes. Must go myself to meet Nihlus." And with that, Lovel got up and left, leaving Joker all to himself.

"Welp, time for my picture viewing time..."

* * *

Khan, Shepard and Lovel all arrived at the CIC and stood at attention at a man who was barking last minute commands to various aides that surrounded him. He wore an admiral's hat that he had "liberated" from a pirate base, and had a bionic eye that was constantly whirring around and scanning the surroundings. Noticing that the people that he had called for arrived, he turned to address them.

**Captain David Anderson**

-Ex-Spectre candidate, totally no hard feelings-

"Shepard, Khan and Lovel, it is good that you have joined us." Commander Anderson stated, "I believe it is time for Nihlus here to discuss the actual reason that he has come aboard."

"Yes, as you may have already guessed, you are not here to just be my transport. You three have been selected as among the best that your species has to offer. I have come to appraise you for Spectre status. Naturally, there will be more examinations, but what we take into account most is an active Spectre's appraisal of a candidate."

Shepard was smirking internally, Khan just fucking knew it, damn smartass, either way, she had to know what the task at hand was. "So what's the deal with, ah, Urtlabo? Corporation went crazy and there's something we have to put down?"

Surprisingly, it was Anderson, not Nihlus who answered the question, "Honestly, we don't know what's going on down there. The last transmission was from a covert Alliance cell that had been sent there to investigate what the hell Maliwan is up to around here. The message was garbled, but what we could make out said that it was probably a good idea to blast the place to rubble and piss on the ashes."

"So, Corporation went crazy and there's something we have to put down?" repeated Khan.

"No, your orders are to find the Alliance cell, headed by a lieutenant Alenko. They were supposed to be on high alert and ready to pull out at any time, but there's been no contact. Get them, get out, and then we can have a "accident" occur with a super-freighter filled with explosives vaporize the place."

"And that won't make Maliwan suspicious?"

"Not if we write Torgue in big letters on the side."

Processing this new information, Khan felt there was something off about this whole situation. Although she felt sympathy for any Alliance soldier who was trapped behind enemy lines, the Alliance had a pretty strong "for the greater good" mentality. Sometimes that meant soldiers were blown up to pieces by explosions so fucking huge that the Torgue corporation would definitely claim that they caused it. This fucker, lieutenant Alenko, or one of his squad-mates was important somehow, and she was going to be damned if this mission ended before she found out what that was...

* * *

While Khan was thinking to herself, Nihlus made an appraisal of the three Spectre candidates before him and their reactions to the upcoming mission. Khan, so far, had shown the most initiative, and had been the first to ascertain the details of what they had to do. However, he had to count against her the fact that her thoughts had immediately switched to an assault. While that may have been correct thinking while she had served in the military, as a Spectre, who would often be working alone, full on combat should be avoided as much as possible. It alerted enemies to your presence, not to mention the difficulties of one agent overcoming a multitude of hostiles. It was also never a good thing if people found out a Spectre was involved in. It meant the council was watching you, and was disapproving, at best, it could lead to diplomatic tensions, at worst, it meant open war.

On the other hand, both Shepard and Lovel's reactions had seemed similar on a cursory glance, but on closer examination, were different in each case. Both had been patient enough to gather information from Khan's questioning, but Lovel had reached towards what was likely his weapons as the details came out on the mission. It was just the smallest twitch towards them, but indicated that while he expected combat, he was not gung-ho about it.

Shepard, however, seemed to fixate more on the name Maliwan than anything else in the conversation. This indicated that he was either more interested in the background of the enemy than the immediate mission, which was a good thing as Spectres were expected to consider the long-term effects on their actions, or he bore them a personal grudge, which was a definite bad thing. However, of the three of them, he seemed the least affected by learning that a comrade might be in severe danger; Spectres were supposed to be able to set their emotions aside, but he seemed to not care at all. If a sociopath became a Spectre -Nihlus suppressed a shudder- that would not be good at all.

* * *

Finally, a target. Two worthy rivals. Time to reveal my skill. They shall marvel at my might.

* * *

Maliwan, Maliwan, Maliwan. Damn, of course it would be them. It wouldn't be Tediore or Dahl, nooooo, it had to be the one company that you could never be sure of your injuries with. Got shot with a bullet and thought it was just a light graze? Ha, corrosion in the wound; make sure that doesn't touch your internal organs or you were fucked. Hope you like being lit on fire, because that was going to happen, a lot, while you were suffering from corrosion wounds, and they were shocking you with electricity.

Of course, it was unfair of him to blame his entire bad mood on the upcoming mission; there was also that bitch, Saratoga Khan, who felt that she was the only one on this entire damn ship that could get angry. Shepard could not even begin to count the amount of times that he had wanted to strangle her with her own intestines. Luckily, he had been sent with a whole contingent of psychos, probably to showcase the might of the group that he belonged to, and they made the best damn outlets of anger that he could find. But this mission, _this mission_, maybe he could let loose: after all, it wouldn't be one or two squads of mercenaries that he wouldn't have been able to calm down from after killing, but a corporation's private security force. This looked like it would be fun.

* * *

Anderson looked at the people that he would be sending on this mission. It looked like they were each thinking about the situation at hand, hopefully. After all, it wouldn't be the first time he had worked with people whose thoughts had been, first and foremost, how much they desperately wanted to kill each other. Hell, he had been one of them. Saren, that... no. Stop these thoughts for now, wait till they leave, and then set that voodoo doll on fire. Well, time to tell them the catch. "At this point I should mention that this planet is, at least on the surface, a completely normal, settled corporate world." That got their attentions. "As such, I hope you all like playing dress up, 'cause that's what we're having you do."

Anderson had to stifle the laugh that threatened to come out of his mouth when he saw their faces, or at least on Shepard and Khan's faces, Nihlus had supported this plan, and Lovel's face-plate didn't give away his expression. What they were thinking was pretty obvious: damn it, fuck, and they were probably calling him a fucker. " Yes, that's right, you can't just go down there and sneak around, that's like a bad spy vid, no, no, no, we're going to send you in _undercover_. We were thinking some of the obvious evil professions, you know, weapon traders, corrupt businessmen, mercenary leaders, insurance salesmen (this last one was said with a look of revulsion), but then we found out what one of the Maliwan's executive's hobbies was." The looks on their faces were even better now. " You're all going in as circus performers."

As soon as Khan heard that this was going to be an undercover mission, the usual thoughts flashed through her head: damn it, fuck, and what a fucker Anderson was, but her heart just sank when she heard it was not going to be one of the expected covers. _Please be strippers, please be strippers_. But no, it was clowns. FUCKING FUCK SHITHEAD FUCK. There wasn't a single funny bone in her entire damn body. Or at least, not the kind of humor that was allowed in a circus. There had to be some way out of this.

"So, we're going to be clowns," Shepard asked, only to be cut off by Anderson, " No, Lovel gets to be a clown, you are going to be a skag tamer, Khan's a trapeze artist, and Nihlus is the agent for the three of you."

"Why does he-" Saratoga began

"Because he's a Spectre. And it's not because I accepted a great deal of money from the Turian government to make him as comfortable as possible, because I didn't. That's slander, and I will jettison you out of an airlock for that. They simply gave me large bags of money because they liked me. Have fun on the mission!" And with that, the conversation was over, and the three Spectre candidates, now temporary circus performers resigned themselves to their upcoming mission.

* * *

Khan, Shepard, Lovel and Nihlus all looked at the sign for the circus that they were supposed to join. It read, " The Great Gozongo's Wondrous Show of Laffs and Humerous Occasions for the Little Ones (now down to 53 deaths per show, lowest in the system!)" Aside from the misspellings of several words, the sign had a picture of a Krogan in garish make-up and with a huge smile on his face. Seeing as there was a distinct lack of bodies somewhere else in the picture, the image was likely entirely due to artist speculation. As they were currently pretending to be civilians, Khan, Shepard and Nihlus were all dressed in casual clothes. However, as Lovel had refused to take off his armor, he was already dressed in a clown's getup, with a huge rubber mask over his face-plate.

As they stood there, one of the nearby doors opened up, and a large Krogan stepped out and strode towards them.

**The Great Gozongo**

-laugh, or else-

Unlike the picture, this krogan was not smiling, nor was he wearing any make-up. He was however, scowling angrily and had a large cigar clamped in his mouth. Before anyone could say anything to him, he immediately began shouting at them, "What is it? What the fuck do all you want, huh? I got a business to run here, I got papers, you can read 'em. I'm allowed to be here." He turned and glared at them all in turn, stopping when he got to Nihlus, "And what's with you, huh, what's a turian doing palling around with a bunch of humans? You here to sell something? Cause I ain't buying!".

At this, Nihlus regained his composure, " I assume you to be the great Gozongo? I am Jovius Carnivalus, and I and my performers had an agreement with you over the phone to join your circus troupe."

"Yeah, yeah, I remember you, something about having the greatest performers I'd ever seen. Huh. Well I've seen Yselda, the great asari contortionist, and compared to that, you guys ain't much. So, who's who? Come on, I ain't got all day."

"John here is a skag trainer, one of the best, Jane is a trapeze artist, as graceful as a khurl, and Maskini is the funniest clown in the entire system."

"Funny, huh? Well in my opinion the creepiest clowns are the funniest, and he don't look so creepy. But I tell ya what, I did give my word I'd take a look at your guys if you brought 'em out here, and that I'll do."

"A look?" Nihlus was taken back at this, "I thought you agreed on hiring?"

"I ain't gonna just hire you on your word, kid. Naw, you gotta earn your place in my circus. Come on inside to the facilites, and we'll see how good these performers of yours are."

Exchanging a look with his three companions, Nihlus, simply nodded his head and followed the fast talking krogan into a nearby building.

* * *

Contrary to what might have been expected about a circus's training area, the inside of the building that they had entered was surprisingly clean. Although there was a strong smell of skag in the air, it wasn't so bad that they could not stand to breathe through their noses. However, while it appeared to be mainly deserted, the undercover agents all sensed that they were being watched. Khan let her hand stray to the concealed turret module at her side. Things could easily get ugly, fast, and it didn't look like there was much cover. Striding over the center of the area, Gozongo stopped and called out in a loud voice, "'EY! VINCENZO, MARKO, VORCHO, GET YER ASSES OUT HERE!". At once, as if on cue, three figures stepped out of the shadows: a turian, a human, and a vorcha. Gozongo turned around and introduced them, "Right, so here's the three fellas who job's yer trying to supplant. This one-" he said, pointing to the turian, "-is Marko, the human's Vincenzo, and I hope that you lot don't need help figuring out which one's Vorcho." Noticing the look of confusion on the humans' faces, he explained, "Yeah, so we noticed that all the big circuses had performers whose names ended in 'o', so we all changed out names to get more business.".

The three performers began to size the newcomers up. The circus business was a cut throat business, and they were trying to figure out what the odds were that they would, in fact, have to cut a few throats. The contempt that they had for their possible rivals was obvious, and they let their attentions drift back to Gozongo.

"RIGHT!" boomed the krogan circus master, " We're going to run a few tests to see if this lot has what it takes to join our happy family. So, with that, let's go the skag cages. John here is going to show us how proficient he is at making our skags listen to him."

"I don't know if-" Shepard started to object, only to be cut off by Gozongo.

"There ain't no problem is there? 'Cause I'm pretty sure any skag trainer worth his salt can get any set of trained skags to do at least a couple of tricks. Unless, this is all a big trick on ol' Gozongo. This had better not be a big trick on ol' Gozongo, OR I'LL EAT YOUR FACES FOR SUPPER!"

"No, no, of course not. " Nihlus responded, " John will be happy to show off his skills for you, we just wanted to know if the skags will be up for it, after all, it is quite late in the day, and I'm sure they are tired by now."

" No worries, no worries!" Vorcho, apparently the current skag tamer, chimed in at this point, "Vorcho give skags best meal. Lots of drugs. They have lots of energy even now. Hehehe." The last bit was accompanied with a smile often associated with people who were planning on back-stabbing their comrades in the near future, which did nothing to make Shepard feel better about what he was going to have to do.

* * *

Naturally, the smelliest, most unkempt place in the entire building was the skag pits, which were kept in the basement. Vorcho walked down to the bars of the enclosure and began banging at them while simultaneously swearing at the skags inside, "FLEA BITTEN MONGRELS! UGLIER THAN VORCHO'S MOTHER! WAKE UP!" This managed to rouse all the inhabitants, who immediately shifted into the natural skag attitude: unrestrained rage. The skags leaped at the bars, snarling for all they were worth, in an admirable attempt to kill everyone there.

"Well, what you waiting for boy? Get in there, and show us yer stuff." Gozongo's suspicions after Shepard's reluctance to view the skags had not yet been diminished, and so, Shepard approached the cage door.

"Well, go on."

Giving a nasty look to the people that he felt responsible for this turn of events, which was everyone, Shepard grabbed the keys from Vorcho's outstretched greasy talons, and put the key in the lock. With a final glare towards everyone, he turned the key and entered the cage. Immediately, the skags turned their attention away from the meat outside the bars, and to what seemed to be their midday meal.

What was most ominous about the whole ordeal, aside from the cackling Vorcho, was the fact that the skags quieted down and began to show less of the frenetic energy that they had immediately prior. They began to circle and pace around Shepard, with the alpha, obvious due to his/her/its size, keeping to the back. The tactic was obvious: let the smaller, weaker skags wear out the prey first, and the alpha would kill the tired prey at the end, when it could no longer defend itself. However, this gave Shepard time to attempt a few tactics. With luck, he would happen upon a genuine skag tamer tactic. Vorcho didn't seem that intelligent, so his most profound musings were likely on the level of random guesses.

First attempt: yelling at them loudly. That seemed to work for drill sergeants and other people in positions of authority, it might work here.

"ALRIGHT. YOU, YOU, AND YOU, FRONT AND CENTER!" Shepard shouted while pointing at three random skags. However, this did not elicit the desired response, instead the skags looked at him in confusion for a bit, and then resumed their circling.

"CRITICAL FAILURE!" that was Khan, apparently she could not resist mocking her squadmate, while Vorcho apparently decided to chime in as well, "You no alpha! Bitey is alpha! You meat! No lap skags for you." Well, that was that. Apparently, the skags had no respect for him, so all his usual tactics would probably have limited effectiveness, time to try-. At this point, Shepard's thoughts were interrupted as he rolled out of the way from a skag that had attempted to leap at his throat. _Shit_, he had misjudged the skags' caution; apparently their little pea-brain minds had enough of waiting; things were going to get nasty.

Shepard looked back at his comrades: while Khan was just laughing harder, and Lovel was his usual expressionless self, Nihlus at least, was letting his hand creep closer to a concealed pistol. If Shepard could not manage this, and fast, they were going to plan B: shoot everything and light it on fire, the human approved, tried and tested, method. But if they did that, Khan would never let him live it down, and the power of hate was always one of Shepard's best motivators. No, he was not going to be the reason they failed. Making himself face the skags once more, Shepard noticed that the alpha had crept forward. With the way that Shepard had forced himself out of the way of the first one that leapt at him, the alpha likely thought he was too weak, and so had decided to give him the _honor_ of being killed by the alpha right now.

Bitey, or at least he assumed the thing's name was Bitey and it wasn't a stupid nickname, was green and had a larger stomach and mouth that his fellows. As the skag approached him, Shepard saw it rear back his head. _No, no, don't even think about it_, Shepard found himself desperately wishing that he was going to be wrong, but of course, he wasn't, and the alpha barf skag retched all over the front of his body.

" HAHAHA HA, OH GOD MY STOMACH!" There was Khan again, laughing, laughing at him, and from the sounds of things, the others were starting to laugh now too. That was it, he couldn't take it anymore, something had to go, and in this case, that something was Shepard's fragile hold over his temper.

" YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Shepard heard himself say. This was followed by Shepard watching himself give a left hook to the alpha and repeatedly stomp on its head. He was quite impressed about what he say seeing, and in the far away corner of his mind, regretted that he did not snap as much: this shit was better than the space cable. "You. Do. Not . Throw. Up. On. Me." Every word was followed by a stomp, "I. Am. Now. Your. GOD! GET IT!" The skag, at this point, had realized the mistake it had made and made a plaintive mewl.

"NOW! ONCE AGAIN! YOU, YOU AND YOU! FRONT AND CENTER!" He pointed towards the skags he had attempted to unsuccessfully command before, but this time, they obeyed. "NOW, ON YOUR HIND LEGS, BEFORE I CUT THEM OFF AND MAKE YOU INTO TWO LEGGED WONDER SKAGS!" In a display of obedience that would have impressed any dictator, the skags immediately got up on their hind legs, and in a desperate attempt to impress Shepard, began to walk back and forth.

Shepard's audience had gone quiet at his show of anger, but now, they began to clap, led, most surprisingly, by Gozongo. Turning around, Shepard saw the Krogan looking at him with a different light in his eyes, "Good going there lad. Thought at first you were having a prank on me, but you got a left hook that could only come from someone used to skags, or vorcha, or really anything stupid. But still, good job. I won't be eating at least one of you tonight."

Shepard nodded at this as he exited the cage and locked it back again. If he kept his mouth shut, he figured there was less of a chance he would say something stupid and give away the fact that dumb luck had gotten him out of that mess.

"Well" Gozongo continued, "Onto the next audition. Jane, yer up, Vincenzo is going to see if yer any good at what you claim to be. 'Course if yer as good as Johnny here, I won't have no complaints about you."

They group of circus performers and circus infiltrators walked back up the stairs. Shepard was wearing a confident smirk, while Vorcho, upset that his new coworker had not been eaten by skags, grumbled under his breath. "If Vorcho had muscle mass, he could give left hook too. And if Vorcho had desirable traits, Vorcho could get mate. And if Vorcho no left vorcha medical school, he could be doctor now, and not live in shit-heap circus. But nooo, Vorcho had to follow love of Vorcho's life..." The griping continued, but as he was a vorcha, not to mention a side character, it was ignored by everyone.

* * *

"And here is our humble circus's training area for you high flying daredevils!" Gogonzo had led them to a part of the circus that had a much higher ceiling than the skag pits had had. The set-up of the area was fairly simple, it had two platforms raised high into the air with swings stationed in front of each. The only difference that it had from most circuses was that instead of having something soft for the trapeze artist to fall on if they missed a grab, there was instead a giant tarp with the words, " Skag Food" written on it. "I don't suppose I gotta enlighten you on what happens if ya miss a swing, do I? We save money!"

Khan was currently on one of the high platforms, but from what Shepard could see, she didn't appear to be too worried._Got to be bluffing_. There was no goddamn way she could be prepared for what she was about to do. From the looks of things, she would have to begin to grab hold of the swing placed in front of her, let it carry her down until she had maximum speed, and then leap from where she was into Vincenzo's arms. From there, it came down to whether or not Vincenzo felt he could beat a murder charge or could manage the risk of a rival.

Half expecting to be rid of who he felt was the single most irritating person on the ship, Shepard felt a smile coming onto his face: this was going to be good. Up on the platform, Khan took a few steps backwards before breaking into a run and launching herself off of the platform. From there, she somehow managed to catch the swing with the back of her legs and let it carry her forward, _Well, that's kind of-_, as she reached the apex of the swing, Khan managed to flip off her swing, get onto Vincenzo's, so she was grasping onto the ropes that supported their weight, before spinning off onto the other platform, -_what the flying fuck?!_ It just... it wasn't fair. How the hell did she manage to do that? There was no way that she could possibly have the required skills to do that. Someone was cheating.

As Khan made her way down the ladder, the rest of the group came forward to congratulate her. "Well, glad to see you all are getting' straight to business now, let's just see how this clown measures up, and I think I'll have all the proof I need to know you're all the real deal." Gozongo lumbered away, followed by the other circus members, but the team of Spectre prospects and current Spectre kept back a little to interrogate Khan.

Shepard began, "Alright, how the fuck did you do that. I can't think of any reason you would possible have that training."

"Indeed, have you done undercover work in a circus before?" Although Nihlus tried to stop it, he could not help but let a note of confusion slip into his voice. Lovel, of course, was silent for all of this, but did not take his focus off of Khan. However, of all possible emotions, it appeared that she was confused above anything else. "What the fuck are you guys talking about? Being able to act on trapeze swings is an essential part of basic."

"Where the hell did you go to basic?" Shepard asked the question that immediately came to the forefront of everybody's minds.

"Same place as everyone else, at-", Khan cut off, " Look, we can talk about this later, right now, if we don't follow Gozongo, he's gonna get suspicious."

Realizing that she was right, the group turned and walked in the direction that Gozongo had left. However, Shepard was now determined. He would find out what the hell was going on with his shipmates, even if it killed them, everyone they loved, and, why not, everyone unfortunate enough to be caught in a five mile radius of his questioning.

On the other hand, Nihlus began to recalculate the worth of the candidates in his mind. Shepard and Lovel were still considered as they were before, but now Khan had moved up in his esteem. She had training that let her adapt to strange situations: he would still have to find out exactly what her basic training was like, but she had become inherently more valuable thanks to this new knowledge.

* * *

"-And that, everybody, is why 'ol Marko is never allowed near the nude beaches on Lakaret, ever again!" Marko concluded his story to the polite laughter of his small audience. The laughter had come a lot more naturally in the beginning of the competition, when people were expecting Nathan, or Maskini, as his cover went to actually do something. However, he really hadn't done anything yet, except stand and stare, and stare, and stare. Or, at least everyone assumed that he was staring, it was actually pretty hard to tell anything seeing as he was wearing a clown mask over a faceplate.

" Why ain't yer clown doing' nothing? He waiting for some kinda cue? Cause I hope he realizes that he better have said something by now. Otherwise, them skags are still hungry, matter of fact, so am I..." This last line, with more than a hint of malice was just the latest in a long line of thinly-veiled threats that Gozongo had been making over the course of the demonstration. Normally, such a threat would have just passed along, but seeing as he had gotten out a bib, and was slowly licking his lips... it would be an understatement to say that Nihlus was starting to get worried.

"Ah, the, uh, great Maskini, has his particular warm-up rituals, and I think we might have missed one in our rush to get over here, I'll just go talk to him, see what is the matter." Nihlus said, as he started to walk towards Lovel.

"So, the last one's a fucking daisy buttercup. You had my curiosity, you had my attention, but now it looks like you want my bullets in your head. Make him perform. OR ELSE!" Gozongo was clearly pissed off now, if they didn't manage to fix things soon, plan B was going have to bet into motion.

Nihlus grabbed Lovel's arm and hurried with him to a corner outside of nosy ears and eyes

"The Spectre should not touch me."

"The hell are you up to Lovel! Do you realize what is at stake here? You are about to blow all of our covers. I do not care for your attitude, but if you force us to go out shooting, I swear to the Spirits that I will make you pay." Nihlus looked around to make sure, but it seemed that no one had managed to hear what he had said. "Do you not have any undercover skills at all?"

"Thought I was to fight. Not play around. Cannot. Will not. It is my way." Lovel's cold and steady voice exited his mask, leaving no trace of emotion. Nihlus was incredulous, _how the hell did this man get recommended as a Spectre candidate?_ Sighing to himself, Nihlus resigned himself that they would likely have to go to plan B. _There goes three years of getting the 'Spectre least likely to cause an International Incident' award_. Nihlus walked back to the stands, and motioned to Khan and Shepard: things were about to get messy.

Gozongo and the rest of his circus performers had turned their attentions back to Lovel. By now, Marko had gotten on a unicycle and was riding circles around Lovel while balancing a pail of water on his head. It was perfect: three quick shots to the back of three heads, they would never know what hit them. Lovel, at least, was known for being able to kill in hand to hand combat, so he would be able to take down the Turian clown quickly and mercilessly.

"Gozongo-" Nihlus began as he reached towards his concealed pistol, but he was interrupted by the sound of a bucket slipping from a Turian head, onto a masked head.

"Hyuck, Hyuck! Sorry pal, but it looks like you're finally getting a few laughs. You should be thanking me!" Marko was mocking his now humiliated competition. Of all the three performers, he was definitely safe. It was true though, the bucket had caused the great Gozongo to let out a snicker.

"Do not touch me." the words were the first that Lovel had spoken to any of the circus performers.

"So you can speak, well, what are you going do about it big gu-HOLY FUCK WHAT ARE YOU DOING!". The turian had stupidly tempted fate, and now, it seemed, fate had deemed to answer. Lovel reached up, as casually as someone might punch a bartender for being rude to them, and had twisted Marko's arm in a way that it definitely was not designed to twist.

"AH FUCK! AH FUCK! PLEASE LET ME GO!" Marko had gone to his basic response: begging. It worked when Gozongo got pissed at everyone, which was every hour on the hour, so he figured it was likely his best bet.

"Make wish."

"Wait. Wha-?"

The question was immediately answered by Lovel grabbing his leg and snapping it in two.

"My wish: break Turian leg. Another wish."

"Oh Spirits, please, please.."-SNAP-

"Dreams do come true." At this point, Marko had passed out from the pain, and was now lying, frothing, on the ground. The deafening silence that followed was only broken by the sound of Gozongo's laughter.

"GAHAHAHA! YOU WEREN"T LYING EARLIER, YOU DO HAVE THE FUNNIEST CLOWN EVER! Oh man, I'm so glad I didn't kill you all when I saw you."

Nihlus, who had been frozen during the entire exchange, managed to shake himself back to normal with the practiced ease that only a Spectre had. "Yes, you do remember his rituals yes, well he completed it when we had our talk."

"Goddamn, that was funny. When he broke Marko's leg, and Marko was all "Someone help me, this is a medical emergency", I just lost it. Fuck, you've all managed to do what you said you could, welcome to the circus!"

As Gozongo walked away, still laughing to himself, Nihlus followed after him to iron out the terms of the contract that would be their cover, and the two conscious circus performers left soon after, dragging their fellow employee away by his arms.

The three Spectre candidates were left by themselves. "Did we just get past most of that by dumb luck?" Khan asked.

"Yes." Shepard said, still trying to process what he had seen of his companions

"Affirmative." it might have been her imagination, but Lovel seemed _happy_ now that he had hurt someone.

"Man, we're awesome."

* * *

Second Chapter's done! AIR GUITAR SOLOS FOR EVERYONE! I'll try to start posting more often, no real promises though. By the way, if you think things are just going to work out for our heroes or that they are not going to have EPIC FAILS... Hehehehehe.


	3. Chapter 3: Sabotaging the Competition

Bam! Put up a chapter roughly a week after the last one. That sure is better than like 6 months. ANYWAYS, there's some codex entries at the bottom of this chapter to explain some things.

Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or Borderlands. They are owned by Bioware and Gearbox Software/ 2K Games respectively. Everything else belongs to their respective authors.

* * *

"FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! TAKE COVER!" Khan shouted at her squad-mates as she ran from a hail of gunfire to take refuge behind some metal crates .

"Thank fucking God every single warehouse in existence seems required to stock bulletproof crates and stack them to the height of a person."

Shepard, who was crouching next to her, nodded a quick agreement, "We can't hide here forever, we have to take care of that thing."

"Yeah, well there's no shitting way that we could have imagined that these assholes would have something that big. I say we just explode the whole damn place, try to crush 'em under the debris." While she was saying this, Khan tried to locate Lovel, but wherever he was, he was a lot more successful at hiding than they were

"Unfortunately we can't do that. Whoever built this building was probably human, or used to humans; it'll take a large amount of extremely high-grade military explosive to make it come crashing down."

"No biggie, I got like eight barrels of Torgue Ocean-Exploder in my storage deck."

"And your plan for how we will escape the burning wreckage is...?."

"Always you gotta find the fucking problems. I don't see you coming up with anything."

"I merely wished to hear your opinion. Listen carefully, I have an idea."

Great, now she was going to have to listen to Mr. high-and-mighty's plan. In the privacy of her own head, she had to admit that blowing up the building while they were in it was _probably_ not the best move. It might have been good enough for a team of Torgue personnel, like the ones she had "borrowed" her explosives from, but not for a team of potential Spectres. How the fuck had everything gone so wrong?

-5 hours ago, AKA, How Everything Went Wrong-

"Right then! Welcome to the happy family! We're happy to have you, yadda yadda yadda, I need you to kill people." The day after they had all been accepted into the circus, Gozongo had called and told them that they had to attend orientation. His first sentence was of the short and simple kind that the Krogan race had become known for.

While the three humans merely accepted this as a common request, Nihlus, at least, was slightly taken back. "I apologize, I must have misheard you. We are circus performers, not hired killers."

Gozongo gave him a confused look before replying, " Yer the talent management for three humans, and yer tellin' me you never had to kill a bunch of people and bury them in unmarked graves? I call bullshit."

"Well-." Nihlus began.

Gozongo threw one large arm around Nihlus and drew him closer, "Look, I ain't trying to catch you guys in anything and then hold it over your heads for the rest of your life so that I can pay you almost nothing. When we get gigs, on this planet at least, we get paid a lot. The problem,however, is getting those gigs."

The Krogan wheeled around and turned towards Shepard, Khan and Lovel, "See, there's this big-shot Maliwan executive who likes to hire circuses, and he got a bunch of his cronies who want to kiss his ass to get in on the act as well, but he pays the best. About a month ago, I got us on the list to perform for him, and last week, I got a call from one of his secretaries that we were third on the list, so I need you to find number one and two and FUCK THEM UP!" The last part of that speech had turned into a tremendous roar that caused the nearby walls to shake.

"Yeah, sure, alright." Khan was the first to speak up. " Seems like normal business practice to me."  
"Gahaha! Damn straight. See, this is why I like to hire humans. When the mercenaries show up they don't go 'please don't kill us, we've done nothing wrong', instead they go straight for their guns. Or it might be because all my human employees are likely on the run and are always expecting somebody to try and kill them. " Gozongo paused as he reflected on what he had just said, "Anyways, I bribed the secretary with some vintage Fornax, so I got the names of the circuses that better be ash tomorrow. There's some leftover gear in storage, so get to it!"

* * *

The four undercover agents looked at the names that had been sent to their omnitools: Cirque du Douleur and The Thessian Traveling Wonders. Excepting Lovel, they had taken the amor that was in the circus storerooms, which were clearly meant to hide the identity of their wearers. Lovel had simply removed his costume and so was disguised as himself. Nihlus had thought that would probably throw people off: everyone would assume it was a disguise, as no one who had heard of the Numbers would believe they would work as a mercenary for a circus.

In regards to weapons, however, it was a completely different story. Nihlus had stuck to two pistols that he had taken with him when he had received his current assignment. They were of Turian manufacture, and so lacked the oddities that often came along with human produced weapons. On the other hand ,they were much more sturdily made than anything one of the mega-corporations might produce for a similar price, and could be relied upon much more.

Lovel had produced a sniper rifle from his storage deck; it was a Jacobs, so there was no element attached to it, but in the right hands, it didn't need one. Khan had taken her turret module out of storage and it was now resting on her hip, and in her hands she was cradling a Maliwan sub-machine gun. It had long red strips along the barrel to indicate that it was an incendiary element gun, perfect for sabotaging a circus group. Finally, Shepard held a Torgue shotgun. It was loud and noisy, just like all other guns the company produced, and coupled with his size, Shepard looked absolutely terrifying.

They were currently debating over what would be the best division of forces. Nihlus had wanted to be able to observe the candidates personally, but time was short on this mission; the sooner they managed to extract Lieutenant Alenko and his squad the better. As the Thessian Traveling Wonders were an entirely asari performing troupe, they might be open to negotiation that would have them withdraw without things getting violent. However, they would definitely not be willing to talk if humans went to negotiate with them; there was simply too much bad blood between the two species for the asari to let things go easily.

To complete things as quickly as possible, Nihlus would go alone to take care of the asari troupe, while Khan, Shepard and Lovel all went to the other circus, which was a mixed group of several species, to shut it down. As the circus master of the Cirque du Douleur was a human, it would seem considerably less suspicious if his entire circus blew up. And the ground became infertile for years to come. And for the restless spirits of the dead to haunt the area demanding justice for their murders until the planet exploded, which, seeing as the mission they were on planned to do just that, wouldn't be long in coming.

It was time to address the people that he was supposed to be in charge of. "Khan, Shepard, Lovel, I would like to remind you that as Spectres, you should be as ghosts. The only ones that should know you were involved in a mission is the Council when they receive your report: we are to avoid any and all unnecessary attention."

Hopefully, that would reign them in a bit. If they remembered the purpose of why they were here, he might be able to reduce the amount of casualties that the mission caused. However, Nihlus had forgotten that he was dealing with humans and their approach to the idea of subtlety.

After Nihlus had walked away and was out of earshot, Khan posed a question to Shepard, " If everybody's dead, that means nobody can report what we do. No report, no crime. Right?."

"I believe so. It makes perfect sense to me at least. What are your thoughts on the matter, Lovel?"

"Agreement."

"Welp, if we all came to the same conclusion then I'm sure that's what Nihlus meant. I thought that the bird would be boring as fuck, but I can get behind this kind of approach."

* * *

"So it looks like the fucker has a guest." Khan was looking through a pair of binoculars at the master of the Cirque du Douleur, Gaston Disnerico. At one point in his life, he had probably been a large, muscular man, but years of eating carnival food had taken its toll, and it looked like he would have trouble climbing a flight of stairs without a anti-gravity seat, like the one in that stupid infomercial that claimed to be endorsed by all the Batarian Ambassadors. She, along with Shepard and Lovel, were on the rooftop of an apartment complex opposite the circus complex.

Gaston was currently in discussion with a buff, shirtless man, who had an obviously fake tan covering the entirety of his body. The bronzed man had a pair of sunglasses on, although it was currently evening and he was in the shadow of a warehouse. _What a douche_, Khan thought to herself, as she looked at him. _I'm gonna look at him for a couple more minutes because I want to remember how stupid he looks. Definitely not because of his ripped chest and chiseled features. Yeah, that first reason. That's why I'm still looking at him._

"So, Khan, any idea of what they're saying?" Shepard's question to her snapped her out of her private thoughts.

"I wasn't doing nothing! I mean, uh, no, I don't have any fucking training in reading lips or any of that other crap. Though you might know some of that."

"Sadly I do not. I am a bit disappointed that your odd basic training would cover something as off as acting as a trapeze artist, but not something more useful like reading lips."

"Who the fuck are you calling odd?! I'm telling you, my basic training was completely normal on-"

" I have a shot." both Khan and Shepard halted their rising argument at the sound of Lovel speaking. He had his body completely prone, and his sniper rifle completely extended.

"End his life?" The question shocked his squad-mates, they had both already written him off in their minds as a lone wolf, doing whatever he thought was appropriate.

Exchanging a look, they came to an agreement. Forget peaceful resolutions, corpses couldn't get in your way, unless, you know, one of the corporations decided to fund research about making zombies, again. But if that happened, they would just have to burn the bodies. In the end, same difference; it was time for a man to die.

Giving a curt nod, Shepard signaled to Lovel, who steadied his gun, took account of the wind, and started to pull back on the trigger... Only to see Gaston reach some kind of agreement with the shirtless man and walk in to the warehouse.

"Fucker"

Lovel's words were a reflection of what each of them thought at that very moment.

"So much for simple assassination. Time to burn this piece of shit's home and livelihood down."

* * *

"So how are we getting in? We hopping the fence?"

"Khan, the fence is an impenetrable, smooth steel wall 14 feet high, and is topped with a pulsating wire made out of electricity that looks like it would fry us if we so much as looked at it too hard."

"All I'm hearing is 'something, something, something, I'm a giant pussy.'. "

"You-!" Shepard was nearing the end of his rope; he was going to strangle Saratoga Khan right then and there, consequences be damned. Then, he could throw her body over the top to disable the electricity. That would be two birds with one stone! Innovation sure was great.

Shepard felt his hands settle into strangling position before he managed to clear his head. If he killed Khan here, they would probably be able to trace her body and figure out something was wrong. Taking a deep breath, he managed to calm himself down: in all likelihood, he would be able to stop himself about three more times before he and Khan got into a spirited argument, that involved guns, and strangulation, and possibly a chainsaw/ his handy buzzaxe.

Noticing an empty box on the street, Shepard felt the beginning of an idea form in his mind. "Khan, be quiet, I know how we're getting in."

"What did you just-"

Shepard gave her his best "not fucking now" look that always managed to make the psychos under his command quiet down. It didn't have the exact same effect, but managed to make the commando give an exasperated sigh and cross her arms. She was willing to follow along, for now.

Shepard picked up the box and held it flat in one hand, before pushing a button on an intercom that was situated next to the gate.

"What the fuck do you want?" A nasally voice crackled out from the small box.

"Pizza delivery." answered Shepard

"PIZZA! FUCK YEAH! Oh my God, are you guys from Angelroni's?!" The person on the other side had gotten extremely excited.

"Sure, why not. Come and open the door so you can get your 'pizza'."

"Normally, we're not supposed to supposed to let anyone in, but PIZZA! I'm coming down right now! Ohmygod, ohmygod, so psyched! PIZZA!"

Shepard gave a satisfied look to Khan, who was now openly scowling.

"Yeah, yeah, alright numb-nuts, you got the door open. But what are we going to do when that guy finds out you don't actually have any pizza."

Before Shepard could give her an answer, the gate swung open, and a panting man stood there. "PIZZA!What toppings dies it have! Hey, you guys don't look like the normal pizza guys" As he saw them in their armor, his thought processes were slowly starting to go beyond that of pizza.

"Yeah, uh, so the last guys came down with a nasty case of bullet-in-their-heads-itis, so we were sent in as last minute replacements. You know how it is."

At the mention of one of the leading causes of human death, the circus performer nodded his head, "Yeah, that's pretty common, lost a couple of my brothers that way."

"Looks like it runs in the family."  
"Yeah. Wait, what-" In one smooth motion Shepard brought his shotgun up and blew the man's head off with a loud bang.

"Holy- What the fuck just happened!" a turian voice shouted.

"Let's go investigate. And bring guns!" came another voice: the casual way it had said to bring guns suggested it belonged to a human.

Several humans and aliens poked their heads out from doors and came rushing over, but before the situation could escalate, Shepard simply held up the box and pointed to the corpse on the floor.

"Fucker tried to get away with not paying me."

"Do you honestly think that we're going to believe that?" One of the turians shouted, while bringing up his gun. However, before he did anything, he was stopped by one of his human comrades.

"Hold up there Vinonas, that's Dennis lying on the ground."

"It doesn't matter who it- wait, did you just say Dennis?" The Turian stopped in the middle of his outburst, and took a closer look at the corpse. "Huh, so it is. Yeah, Dennis was a moron, he probably did try to not pay the pizza guys."

By now the crowd of circus performers had gotten larger, but the first turian and human started to shoo them away.

"It was just Dennis being a fucking idiot!" That, apparently was good enough for them, as people then began to disperse and return to where they came from.

"Sorry about that", said the turian, Vinonas, "Man, if you just said the guy was Dennis, we would have all understood. Who's the pizza for?"

"Uh, Disnerico?"

"Oh, I think he's in warehouse A. You can just go in there and give it to him. Door should be unlocked." Vinonas continued, "Yep, good old soundproofed warehouse A. A nuke could go off in there, and not a single person would hear it. Well, I'll let you on your way"

"Thanks."

"No problem! You killed Dennis! That guy was a fucking asshole." With that, the turian and his human companion walked away, leaving Shepard, Khan and Lovel alone.

"Told you I had a plan." Shepard said to Khan , with a small grin on his face.

"Yeah, well time for plan 'Shoot some guy in the face extra hard." Khan replied

"Like that plan"

"Yeah, I thought you'd like that one, Lovel." Khan seemed to struggle with a thought for a moment, then gave Shepard a light tap on the arm. Well, it was probably meant to be a light tap, but it came off as a regular punch.

"The hell-!" Shepard began to swear.

"Good, uh, good fucking plan to get us in. It was, uh, well thought out, and stuff." Khan was clearly struggling to get the words out, but it was evident they were without sarcasm.

"Thank you, XO Khan, I appreciate the words."

"Don't expect it again." Khan said while speeding up to get to the warehouse quickly.

"I won't" Shepard said, adding under his breath, "Bitch".

* * *

As they crept into the warehouse, they attempted to see if there were any additional guards, but noting that there were none, they continued forward. Khan felt a smile creeping onto her face; this was going to be easy.

Drawing closer, they saw that Disnerico was arguing with the tanned man from earlier.

"-Completely outrageous. Do you really think that I'm going to pay you that much for your product? I'm sure it's just some old model you shysters repainted to look new!"

"First off brah, not cool calling us scammers. Second, this is totally a deal. There's like a thousand people who would kill to get the deal we're offering you. You should, like, consider yourself lucky." The bronzed man countered. Whoever he was, he had a strong surfer accent, which was strange considering the Urtlabo was a desert planet. In addition, he was standing in front of a large wooden crate.

_Time to get this over with_. Khan said to herself; readying her Maliwan SMG, she looked to her partners to see if they were ready. Getting confirmation from the two of them, she stepped out of the shadows and pointed her gun at Gaston.

"Gaston Disnerico, surrender yourself to us immediately!"

"Ah fuck! I always knew that the investors that I suckered into that Ponzi scheme would come one day to try and kill me!"

"That's, uh, that's not why we're here."

"My gun smuggling?"

"No."

"Bribing elected officials to allow chemical runoff into drinking water?"

"No"

"For running that alien slavery ring?"

"Again, that's a no, but I think that's fucking disgusting."

"My drug empire?"

"You've been fucking busy! Why the hell are you running a circus?"

"It's a pleasant hobby," said the pudgy man, "Then why are you here?"

"Killing you on behalf of your business rivals"

Gaston's associate, who had been silent during the entire exchange, suddenly cut in. "Yo, Gaston, bro, buddy, you wanna rethink my offer now?"

Gaston turned towards him, "Perhaps. Get rid of these fools, and you'll definitely have proven you're selling a product that's at least worth something."

"Hey, don't fucking just ignore us!" Khan yelled out, "And who the fuck are you anyway?"

At her side, Shepard started for a second, "Dammit, I just remembered that's-!"

However, as he was talking, the man flexed his muscles, and shouted. "Babydoll! How can you not recognize me: Buddy Baha!"

**Buddy Baha**

-Totally Gnarly! Excellent Wicked Supreme!-

"I still don't know who you are." Khan retorted. It was a shame, the pretty ones were always so dumb. At this, Buddy deflated a bit.

"Come on babe. One of Baha Brothers top salesmen? Voted MOST RADICAL DUDE EVAH four times in a row in Radical Dudes Monthly? Come on, give Buddy some love."

"Not ringing any bells." However, despite putting him down, Khan recognized that Shepard was starting to tense up; this guy was no joke, even if he looked and acted like an idiot.

"Fuck it, you know what, it doesn't matter. Buddy don't care if some corpses don't know who Buddy is."

Well that was certainly ominous. They should probably take care of him quickly before he caused trouble. But, before they could do anything, the man reached into his shorts and pressed a button. Almost at once, the wooden crate began to shake and a large mechanical figure broke out.

**B.R.A.H Bot**

-Acronyms are fun!-

"Sister, I would just give up right now if I was you. You're looking at the Battle Ready Armored Humanoid Robot, or B.R.A.H Bot for short. The latest in Baha bros technology! And it's Eco-friendly"

"That's a stupid name for a robot!" shouted Khan

"You're stupid! B.R.A.H Bot, attack!"

"NO SUNLIGHT DETECTED. TO KEEP UP RUSE OF BEING SOLAR POWERED, B.R.A.H BOT WILL REMAIN IN SLEEP MODE." Although it had burst out of the crate with a frenzy of energy, the robot quickly powered down, and Khan had to suppress a laugh. Buddy, however, still seem prepared.

"Like, Total Override, brah, let your bad self out!."

"COMMAND AFFIRMED. INITIATING PROTOCOL :SUN'S OUT, GUNS OUT."

At this, the gigantic robot opened panels all over its body, from which a variety of weapons came out. Without any further warning, every single gun went off, and began to rip apart anything and everything that was in its way.

Both Khan and Shepard leaped to the side to avoid the bullets, and began to unload their own firearms at the bot. Unfortunately, whatever it was made out of was extremely resistant, and it remained unaffected by not only the stream of fiery bullets from Khan's SMG, but also the concentrated blasts from Shepard's shotgun.

"Yes I Lift. That's Why I'm So Ripped." The robotic voice droned as it sped up the rate of fire. Now, it seemed like each gun that the robot possessed was a chain gun. It swiveled to focus on Khan; it seemed that it had decided to focus down each of them one at a time. Realizing that she was doomed if she remained where she was, Khan began to run, shouting, "FUCK-!"

-Back in the Present-

"FINE! What do you got for us!" Khan demanded of Shepard, "In case you hadn't noticed, that thing's not only got more firepower than all of us, we can't make a dent in it."

"I saw an early model of this at a trade show. It's got something called a TRIBAL missile on board. When it tries to fire that thing, it has to open up a lot of its insides. A well placed grenade at that time should take care of things."

"TRIBAL?" Khan asked

"Tactical Recon Intensive Ballistic Army Liquifier. "

Tactical Recon, of course it would have a Tactical Recon missile. For some odd reason, other species did not share the human point of view that you made an area a completely desolate wasteland, you could technically have a pre-written, completely accurate report. There had been some attempts to reclassify such missiles as WMDs, but so far, human opposition to such measures had been strong.

"Why would it ever fire that thing?!"

"We make it really, really annoyed." Leaning over, Shepard whispered what he was planning to do. As he did so, Khan started to smile wider and wider. This was going to be _fun_.

Shepard slowly counted off with his fingers. _One, Two, Three!_ At the third count, the two fighters left cover in opposite directions. This was just in time; had they spent a moment longer there, they would have been killed by the rockets that the B.R.A.H bot volleyed over the crates.

Immediately, Khan threw out her turret module, which instantly digistructed its contents. The turret possessed its own shield, so it would be able to soak up whatever stray damage was sent its way, as the robotic menace was more focused on the living soldiers. Immediately, the turret began attacking the B.R.A.H bot with corrosive bullets. _Thank God I paid for that upgrade_, Khan mused while dodging bullets and firing at the robot. The corrosion wouldn't be strong enough to melt away the thicker parts of armor, which is why she hadn't immediately used it, but it could damage the thinner panels that covered the guns, allowing for some of them to be shot off, which was necessary for Shepard's plan.

The booming sound of a shotgun rang out over the din of the battle, followed by a harsh tearing noise. Shepard was definitely managing to carry out his part, and had apparently managed to destroy at least one of the armaments. However, the whole thing seemed so damn huge and had a seemingly endless supply of guns. At least it wasn't focusing on one person anymore; it seemed like the computer on board had determined that it wasn't a winning strategy.

_There_. Khan noticed a panel that had been struck with several corrosive bullets was now beginning to weaken and sag. By focusing fire on that spot, she was able to force the panel to fall off and managed to destroy one of the larger guns. _Take that you fucking piece of junk_. However, carried away with the euphoria of what she had accomplished, Khan did not notice one of the guns swiveling to face her until it was too late.

"CHILL OUT SISTER. HA HA PUNS HAVE BEEN SHOWN TO INCREASE NOVELTY SALES BY 5.7 PERCENT" Christ that robotic voice was irritating, but right now her problem was the liquid methane gun that was about to fire upon her. There wasn't enough room for her to avoid it, she was about to become a commando-sicle. _At least I'll face this with my eyes open_. Khan gritted her teeth, but was surprised when she did not experience the subzero temperatures that she was expecting. The answer came soon enough: a shot had torn through the gun's connecting hose, and so there was no methane for it to shoot. Looking around, she spotted Lovel who had somehow gotten up on the rafters. He had been waiting for the perfect moment to strike, and had spotted it.

The destruction of the methane pump did more than just save her life, Khan realized; the methane was now spraying wildly around a large section of the robot, freezing its guns and causing them to shatter as they were struck with bullets from its opponents. The robot was beginning to lose, slowly but surely.

"YO BRO CHECK OUT MY SWEET T.R.I.B.A.L! JUST GOT IT!" The B.R.A.H bot shrieked; it was getting desperate.

"Naw, B.R.A.H Bot. Don't harsh your mellow like that. You're gonna make it so uncool for everyone!" Buddy started to yell at the machine, likely fearing for his life, but it was no longer responding to anyone's commands. What had been done was now set in stone.

This was the moment that they had been waiting for, Khan ripped off a brace of grenades that she had been keeping around her waist, and threw it into an opening that had appeared on the robots back. The T.R.I.B.A.L missile was huge, if this didn't work, they were all going to die. Looking over, she saw that Shepard had done the same with some grenades of his own, and Lovel, catching on quickly, had followed suit.

BRAKABOOM! The explosion that resulted would have made a Torgue demolitions crew proud, as the grenades went off and caused the TRIBAL missile, still contained with the robot, to explode, completely destroying the insides. The BRAH bot stood still for a moment, then fell apart, the smoking metal pieces falling to the ground as the internal parts of the machine were now in smithereens.

"My baby, my sweet poor baby. It never hurt anybody, it never got a proper chance!" Buddy was crying over the wreckage of his machine, and seemed completely impotent now. However, he wasn't the problem. They had to kill Gaston before he managed to escape and gather this employees to kill them; Khan, at least was nearly out of ammo, and she doubted the other two had much more: they would lose that fight. Luckily, she didn't have to worry, Nathan had caught the circus master and was dragging him to the center of the warehouse.

"Wait, wait, wait! This is just an execution!" Gaston cried out. "Shouldn't you give me a trial!"

"Did you forget why we're here? We got told by our boss to kill you, so we're going to kill you. For profit. not justice." Khan retorted

"Oh, right. Completely forgot about that. I'm so used to do-gooders trying to kill me. Old habits and all. Don't suppose you would be open to bribery, would you?"

"Most days, yes, unfortunately, there's a 'you tried to kill me tax' which is juuuuust more than you can pay." With that, Khan smiled, before unloaded the remainder of her magazine into him, ending his life.

"Kill-Stealer" Nathan grumbled, "I caught him."

"Kill Stealer?! Kill Stealer?! I did the fucking lion's share in this job. I distracted the damn thing most of the time."

"It was my plan" Shepard interjected, "I should have been the one to do it."

"Fuck it, we'll figure out who was most badass when we get back. But first, what do we do with this guy?" Khan pointed towards Buddy, who was now in the fetal position sucking his thumb.

"If we kill him, we'll likely have to deal with a mega-corporation's investigation later on. Let me deal with this" Shepard said as he approached Buddy. He then knelt down and, making sure no one could hear him, whispered into Buddy's ear, "Remember me?"

This snapped Buddy out of his sorrow, "You! You're...! Oh my fucking god, I'm so sorry. If I had seen that it was you, Mr Shepard I would never have activated the robot! I'm so-!"

Shepard cut him off. "You're going to forget that I was here. And everything that happened. If anyone asks, you got blackout drunk and woke up here, got it?"

Buddy nodded his head quickly, and got back to staring at the floor. Rejoining his companions, Shepard motioned to them, "We're done here, let's see ourselves out."

"Who made you the fucking boss?"

"Jddttt! Didn't we have a moment of camaraderie back there? Mutual respect and all?

"Suck it. We've got a long way before you can order us around. And besides, all of us have been in a lot more dangerous situations and gotten out alive."

"Seconded."

"FINE! I'm going back and you two and just sit around and jerk it for all I care!"

"Ha! Got you to curse!"

"XO Khan ,you are literally the worst human being I have met in a while."

"Don't give a fuck!"

Grumbling, swearing, and bickering, the trio left the warehouse, and made their way back to Gozongo's, the first part of the mission, at least their half, had been successful.

* * *

Nihlus smiled to himself. Negotiations with Matriach Tealua, had gone well. She had agreed to withdraw her troupe from performing, and to return to Thessia under the pretext of personal issues. Seeing as he had not heard explosions from the other side of the city, Nihlus assumed that Shepard, Lovel and Khan had managed to solve their task quietly as well. Taking out his omnitool, Nihlus decided to check the news to see if any events were coming up that might complicate the mission.

On the screen, a pretty asari newscaster read the news, "And now for tonight's top story: Baha Brother's executive, Buddy Baha, has apparently killed respected circus owner Gaston Disnerico, while blackout drunk. Local authorities are expressing surprise that a human could kill by accident and not out of intentional malice. While we couldn't talk with Buddy, we were able to get into contact with some of Disnerico's former employees. And now to Salena, on the ground."

The scene then shifted to an asari field reporter, who approached a turian who was apparently crying, "Sir, sir, we hate to intrude in this moment of sorrow, but this must have been horrific, losing your boss in a fiery explosion."

The turian blinked a few times before facing the camera, "Wait, Gaston's dead? I was crying tears of joy because that idiot Dennis was finally dead. This day just keeps getting better!" he then turned around, "GUYS! GASTON'S DEAD TOO!". At this, several shouts could be heard, such as "FIESTA TIME!" and "THERE IS A GOD!"

Nihlus turned off the omnitool. How, how had they managed this? They had technically remained unnoticed, but what they had done was now the top story on nightly news! It shouldn't have been possible! It was definitely time to reconsider the impossibility that were humans.

* * *

**CODEX ENTRIES**

**The Relay 314 incident **

**(official name in Council documents)**

The Relay 314 incident marked the introduction of the human race into the galactic stage at large. Whereas before they had been confined to the six systems, humanity was now able to access the galactic proper. Unfortunately, first contact was not peaceful as many may have hoped. Instead, following a botched meeting, it was thought that humanity as a whole had decided to declare war on the council, instead of the reality that it had been a fringe group that had first met an asari science ship that had noticed a relay acting unusually. Following the violence, in which the crew of the _The Glevidia_ managed to escape, a nearby Turian patrol was called in to help pacify the human threat.

The Turian assault on Deucalion had mixed result: while their fleet dominated the skies of the Tediore-controlled planet, fighting on the ground was especially ferocious as the inhabitants had retreated to underground bunkers that had not been breached by orbital bombardment. Eventually, the arrival of a Torgue super-explosion fleet arrived, and in their own words "Fucking pissed the party started without them", began to wage war on the Turian fleet in orbit, gradually driving them off. The later arrival of Systems Alliance troops, whose spies had relayed the fact that the enemies were actual aliens, led to diplomatic talks whereupon peace was declared.

**That time Mike got drunk instead of being on watch, so we got attacked by Aliens **

**(Tediore internal information, recovered by the Systems Alliance)**

Unknown to the Turians, the zeal of the defenders was only due in part to a desire to protect their homes. Upon realizing that they were fighting true aliens and the potential profit of obtaining new alien technology, Tediore higher-ups reminded General Williams that any attempts to surrender would result in immediate termination, as well as their families marked as 'home invaders' on Tediore controlled worlds. This information has so far been concealed, as the Turians falsely attributed the heavy resistance to patriotism, and knowing the truth would likely sour diplomatic relations.

**Current Human relations with other species**

**Turian** – Between the human and Turian species, there is a certain amount of hard-won respect. While each resents the other (on the surface) for challenging their military might, the shared militaristic cultures produce a great deal of familiarity. The greatest amount of human joint missions is with the Turians (the construction of the _SSV Normandy_ being only one of the latest), and it is generally agreed to be one of humanity's better relations.

**Asari** – Relations between Humanity and Asari are tenuous at best, and outright hostile at worst, despite several cosmetic similarities. To humans, the fact that the Asari brought in the Turian race to fight the Relay 314 conflict was seen as cowardly, coupled with the Asari reliance on diplomacy, this has led to humans having a poor view on Asari. To the Asari, the desire of the human race to fight everyone and anything is extremely barbaric, and not befitting of a civilized race.

**Salarian** – Of the three major Council races, Humanity has had the least contact with the Salarian race. This is speculated to be due to the lack of human dependence on element zero technology, which has been at the core of many Salarian advances. In addition, the restricted access to Eridian artifacts has limited Salarian interaction with humanity, as they have no interest in dealing with scraps. The general consensus of humanity is the Salarians are odd, but not unlikeable

**Volus**\- The cult-like mentality of the Volus towards monetary institutions has struck a chord with humanity, which tolerates the Turian client race. However, as with the Asari, the fact that the Volus leave most of their fighting to the Turians have led to human-volus relations being quite chilly.

**Quarian** – As there currently exists only one (known) relay into human space, human-quarian interaction has been extremely limited, as the Quarian migrant fleet has yet to pass by human controlled space. The current human view on Quarians is mixed: some dislike them for running away from a problem that they created, while others respect the Quarian desire to retake their home planet that has not yet wavered.

**Krogan**\- As two extremely warlike races that use armed conflict as a primary way of settling disputes, humans and Krogan have gotten along as well as a "house on fire" to use a human expression. When hiring mercenaries, the two races tend to seek each other out before relying on members of other species. However, the crippled Krogan population due to the Salarian genophage, and the corresponding absence of Krogan influence in galactic affairs has led to a lack of official ties between the two species.

**Hanar and Drell- **Humanity has almost no contact with these two races, but find it odd that the Drell would continue to live in servitude to another race. From a poor selection of entertainment vids sent to humans as part of a 'welcome package', humanity has conceived the notion that many Drell are actually assassins disguised as butlers for Hanar masterminds, and so tend to approach them with caution on the rare occasion that they meet.

**Batarian**\- No officially sanctioned policy exists between the two races, but due to a variety of incidents, the general approach is to shoot on sight for both races.

**Eridian Technology**

Humanity, as opposed to all other council races, has based their technology on the artifacts of a race known as Eridians as opposed to the Protheans. While an early theory stated that the two races were one and the same, but were simply different nations, this has since been disproved due to the presence of artifacts that not only suggest radically different physiology, but technological basis.

A treaty signed between Humanity and the Council has agreed that Eridian artifacts found in Council Space will be handed over to humans for joint study, and Prothean artifacts discovered in human space will be handed over to the Council for joint study. Oddly enough, no such artifacts have been found, although several conspiracy extranet sites suggest that governments are simply concealing any discoveries in an attempt to get ahead of their rivals.

These claims are generally rebuffed by the fact that (so far) Eridian and Prothean technology (excepting the mass relays) tend to malfunction whenever they are combined. Several theories currently exist to explain how the two civilizations could exist to leave artifacts from roughly the same age, yet seemingly have no contact, the leading of which suggests relay 314 "drifted" into its current location from another area of space.

**Digistruct Technology**

A major human technology that has been slowly adopted by other races is that of digistruct technology, which allows for the storage of many different objects. However, the limitations of digistruct technology, such as a reduced fidelity in reconstruction when many different items are stored has discouraged many races from attempting to use it beyond use in the construction of very simple yet large objects. One of the most visual differences between human soldiers and those of other races s the presence of storage decks as opposed to mag-locked weapons.

**The Extranet and Omnitools**

Upon joining the galactic community, the human used EchoNet and Echo devices were phased out in favor of the much more widespread Extranet and more versatile omnitools. The only exception to this tends to be human soldiers who wish to avoid hacking attempts by those familiar with Omnitools and diehard fantics who keep the EchoNet and Echo-broadcasts alive with their home-made emitters.

* * *

It's not in this chapter because I'm going to put it into a later codex but Baha Bros. is a new corporation (at least new to us, in-universe it's been around for a while) and before anyone complains that I made a Baha an enemy, he's not really a bad guy,it was just business. To clear up any misconceptions, no, he is not the CEO or anything like that, he's more like the nephew who got a job due to nepotism. Also: reviews, they're super mega awesome, like a pony made out of diamonds. Just saying.


	4. Chapter 4: Saving Lt Alenko

As they entered the sprawling complex that belonged to Magnus T. Zimboltz, Khan could not help but suppress a shudder. Something about the entire place just seemed to be _wrong_. She couldn't place where exactly the feeling was coming from, it just seemed to emanate from everywhere: from the stone cherub that spat out acidic ooze instead of water, or the gate that had a sign that read"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here (except if you're an investor, in which case, profits are way up!)".

Whatever she was feeling, however, was definitely not restricted to her alone, Shepard and Lovel were also feeling whatever it was: their hands kept on drifting towards their SDUs and they were constantly patting their armor and shields to make sure that they weren't in danger of failing.

Apparently, Zimboltz was a scientist that had worked his way up to being the top executive in the entire system, and he had never forgotten where he came from. To that end, he had combined his home with Maliwan's largest R &amp; D complex in Rimbor.

Assaulting a corporate executive in his own home was normally a suicide mission: they were always constantly updating their security measures because there was nothing corporations liked more than killing their rivals' executives. Of course, that was almost nothing compared to what it was like to attack a corporation's research hub, where they kept all of their nasty secrets. If you were lucky, you could get out with files on their secret projects. If you were unlucky, you got to meet those secret projects, or worse, became one of the corporation's dirty secrets yourself.

Khan thought back to what Nihlus had told them about the general layout of the facility and the plan that they would follow to try and locate Kaidan Alenko and his squad:

-The day before-

Nihlus was fuming, bur he had no idea how he was supposed to discipline the three people that were supposed to be under his command. _Technically_, they had done nothing wrong: they had accomplished their task without revealing themselves, but, they had blown up an entire damn warehouse and been the top story on nightly news! By the spirits, how was he supposed to accept that?! Normally, the possibility of becoming a Spectre was enough to keep a potential candidate on their best behavior, but these humans didn't seem to care that they might be ruining a once in a lifetime opportunity, so he had to settle on glowering at them when they had gathered for debriefing.

Opening up a holomap of the area, Nihlus pointed out the areas of interest for their upcoming mission.

" From what you can see, we will be entering from gate A, which is the most public entrance to the complex." Nihlus pointed at a set of tall buildings that were set far apart from everything else, "However, the last known point of contact with Lt. Alenko and his squad is over here, in the Eta complex, where most of Maliwan's research is actively going on. To reach this spot, we will need to leave this building where Gozongo and his circus will be performing" Nihlus touched out a squat building that was nearly on the opposite side of the map, which then transformed the hologram into a cross section of the selected building.

"The only way to possibly accomplish this without alerting Maliwan to our absence is to use a underground high-speed rail available to their employees that has stops all over the area. To do so, we will need to break into a store room that should hold extra uniforms and passes," as Nihlus talked, he pointed out the various areas that they would need to traverse, " If we're lucky, most of the guards will be attending to the VIPs watching the circus, so it should be relatively unguarded. From there, it should be a relatively quick extraction mission, although we should be prepared for the possibility that we will have to fight our way back before escaping. Are there any questions?"

Shepard was the first to respond, "How are we supposed to find Alenko? I'm pretty sure Maliwan doesn't run a lost and found for wayward Alliance spy teams."

At this question, Nihlus brought out a small device and placed it onto the table, "With this. It's a specialized geo-locator attuned to the frequencies of special sub-dermal chips implanted in Alenko and his squadmates. If we get close to them, it should be able to locate their signal."

Nihlus looked around to see if there were any further questions. Khan, after noticing that her colleagues/rivals were deep in thought about the upcoming mission, decided to speak up, "Alright, so nobody's gonna fucking ask, huh? Alright, I'll do it. If we find this guy's secret harem of sexy ladies and/or dudes, is it against the rules to take one or two of them back with us?"

Nihlus had to stop himself from covering his face with one of his hands, "Khan, no such harem exists."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes"

"Really, really sure? That's not exactly the kind of thing that would go in intelligence reports, and you really shouldn't just decide on whether or not something exists." Khan, apparently, was not satisfied to let the question go.

"Yes Khan, I'm 'really, really sure'. And even if such a harem did exist, which I repeat, **is not true**_**, **_it would be against every rule to ' take one or two of them back with us'."

Khan stuck out her tongue at him, "Fine spoilsport, but when we run into the harem, you're going to have to be the one who explain why they all have to stay in their shithole."

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Nihlus asked once more, "Are there any other questions? Ones that don't involve things that don't exist?"

At the shaking of heads, or in Lovel's case, a black stare from beneath a face plate, Nihlus continued, "In that case, I encourage you to make sure all of your gear is in proper condition. The mission begins at 0500 tomorrow."

-back in the present-

Gozongo rapped a large meaty fist on the side of the truck that they were travelling on, "Alright, out you get,. You may not be performing 'cause yer new and all, but I'll be a salarian's uncle before I let you just laze around. Grab some of the containers and start setting up, show time's after these corporate scumbags finish eating their lunch, which is in an hour or two."

Khan alerted the rest of the team and stepped out of the truck; for better or worse, they were in. Looking around, she tried to discern what kind of security measures they might be going up against. On the surface, it was the usual, armed guards and security cameras infested the grounds, but there was something about the area that seemed _familiar_, something that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. All of a sudden, it hit her, there were no animals in the area. Normally, you could count on at least birds hanging around, but the place was much too quiet for them to be living here; the last time things had been like this was over in Akuze, right before everything had gone to hell.

"Is everything alright Jane? You're just standing there." Shepard had come over to check on her, calling her by the name she have been given as cover. Saratoga had been lost in reliving the events of that fateful day, and she had not realized that she had been wandering around the area in a dazed state.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm alright, I'm alright. Just thinking about some...stuff."

Shepard gave her a look, but decided to ignore it for the time being, "Well, if you're not too busy thinking about 'stuff', perhaps you might be willing to help us with transporting these crates inside. With your bestial strength, I'm sure things will go much more quickly."

"Hey! Go fuck yourself! I'll have you know I've got the heart of a maiden and all the shit that comes along with something like that."

Shepard chuckled at that and simply handed her a box of equipment to carry inside. He was not sure why he was in a good mood. Normally he would have taken the time to insult her in a way that, admittedly, went over her head and left her feeling the victor in a verbal spar, but today he found some humor in her statement. The anticipation of what might occur this day was probably the cause of it. Nihlus might have some hope that this would be a quiet pick-up, but Shepard knew that there was no chance in space hell of that happening, there was going to be guns blazing, people dying, and he was going to have a good time.

* * *

"There's the storeroom." Nihlus stated, as he cautiously looked around a corner. The undercover team had left the circus performance as it began, and had entered the upper levels of the building that they were in. As had been expected, the building was lightly guarded, as most of the security personnel was involved in watching over the numerous VIPs watching Gozongo's circus perform in the main exhibition room. However, there were still a few guards placed haphazardly around the building as a deterrent to any possible intruders, and while most of them had been avoided, there was a man posted outside the storeroom that they needed access to.

Khan spoke up, "I got this one." , but as she rose to deal with the lone guard, Nihlus placed a taloned hand on her shoulder and motioned for her to wait.

"First, we should deal with any possible recording devices," said the turian as he reached into a pouch by his side and withdrew two small metallic spheres which he threw into the air, "Latest design from STG, works to hinder cameras by hacking into the data feeds and giving them a false stream." The two orbs started whizzing in the air, and flew up to the ceiling, emitting a nearly unnoticeable small glowing field around the area, "Now you can go."

By this time, the guard in question had started to sing to himself, "Standing here guarding this door. Guarding this door, Sure hope no-body ambushes me and takes the stuff that's in here. 'Cause if they don't kill me my boss -" he stopped as he saw Khan approaching him.

"Halt! Identify yourself or be shot in cold blood by Maliwan!"

However, rather than directly answer his question, Khan instead struck a pose at him. "Who, lil ol' me? I'm just one of the circus performers looking around this really impressive building, it's not ofen we get to come to places like this."

"I must ask that you return to where you came from, coming this far is forbidden to non-Maliwan personnel." The guard stonewalled her, apparently ignoring the fact that she was pretending to come onto him.

"But that's soooo boring, wouldn't you like to do something _fun?_ You know, I work as a contortionist for Gozongo." Khan had not given up yet, and did what she would normally would have considered abhorrent, she _smiled to be nice_.

"This post is pretty boring..." The guard began, and Khan began to feel the beginnings of triumph rising within her, "and if you got it, I'd really be up for a game of Cones of Dunshire!", only to have those feelings shot down.

"A _different_ kind of fun." she replied, hoping that he would see what she was trying to imply.

"You got a Gamestation in here! Aw, but I really can't leave my post. Sorry, for me it's board games or nothing."

"I meant sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Can't you take a hint?" Khan was fed up now. Where the hell did the corporations hire their guards? Idiots-R-Us?

"Ma'am you are very pretty. I think. However, I have to say that I'm sorry but I'm gay. But there are several guards that would be interested in your offer just down the hall. Hell, I can bring you over to them if you want."

"Alright, fuck this 'trying to be nice' shit. Knee to the dick!" while saying this, Khan brought her leg up and kneed the guard in the crotch, and brought her hands clenched into fists down upon his head, knocking him out instantly. Upon seeing this, both Nihlus and Shepard reflexively covered the groin area of their armor and winced, it was impossible not to; there were some pains that men of all species knew and feared above all else.

Khan looked back towards them. "Told you I had it covered. Now are you gonna come and get your disguises, or are you just going to bask in the majesty of my greatness?"

The Spectre and the remaining two Spectre candidates shared a look between themselves and followed Khan into the storeroom, pausing only momentarily to give a brief sprayer on behalf of the man lying on the floor: he had truly been made to sacrifice much for his company, and they had to respect that even if he was an enemy.

* * *

After getting their disguises, the trip down to the rail station was relatively uneventful. Once again, Lovel had refused to remove his armor, and so was dressed in a full body hazard suit, while the rest of them wore the clothes of maintenance workers. While there were a few guards that stopped them to make sure that they were not intruders, a cursory glance at their passes allayed any suspicions and they were waved onward. Occasionally, there was an odd look directed towards Nihlus, but no one said anything aside from an occasional, "Taking our jobs" comment that was muttered under their breath.

The rail station itself reflected the Maliwan aesthetic. Rather than having any sharp or jutting lines, everything looked smooth and futuristic. Glowing lines pulsed through the walls and floors despite apparently serving no real purpose besides being reminiscent of a future that had been promised in movies and tv shows but never had come into existence. A few chrome and steel benches existed and looked extremely uncomfortable, which had resulted in the employees in the station standing up and being engrossed in their omni-tools.

Khan started to sniff the air, "Place doesn't smell right." she muttered after taking a few whiffs of the station

"Smell right?" Lovel, apparently, had been confused by her comment, and asked his companion what she meant. Whether it had been confusion over the what the smell was or what it meant to smell in general was left unclear.

"Yeah. Normally, places like this smell of piss and loneliness. But this place smells like lemon scented soap. The people who designed this place were so concerned over whether or not they could they didn't stop to think if they fucking should."

After a short while, a train pulled into the station; resembling a smooth, featureless snake, and as the doors opened and people entered, the four agents collectively repressed a shudder; one way or another, they were entering the belly of the beast.

The inside of the train matched the outside, with featureless steel and chrome being very prominent, and as the train sped up, the tunnel walls that could be seen from the trains windows became mere blurs.

Looking around, Shepard took note of the other passengers. There were not that many but they all seemed to be rank and file workers rather than guards or higher-ups in Maliwan, so no one who could really cause any trouble. After noting that the other passengers were fairly harmless, Shepard turned his attention to the rest of the train, looking for hidden compartments. In his experience, there was nothing corporations enjoyed doing more than hiding turrets and other defense mechanisms where people would overlook them, however, there truly seemed to be none. Zimboltz must really depend on his guard force to defend his lab from infiltration. _Good_.It seemed that everything was going according to plan, they would simply separate from the crowd when they reached the main complex and locate Lt. Alenko, wherever the hell he was. They were carrying extra uniforms for him and his men so that they could escape easily. As guards typically worked to keep people out rather than stop them from leaving, there were no expected difficulties. It would be after this mission, in all likelihood, that the real trials of Spectredom would begin.

However, at the very moment that Shepard started to relax, the train started to slow down and eventually ground to a halt. They had not yet arrived at another station, and indeed, there seemed to only be tunnel as far as the eye could see both in front and behind the train, what it meant was obvious: there was going to be trouble.

As if on cue, the train's announcement system, normally reserved for declaring what stops were coming up, crackled to life, and a mechanical voice came on. " Dear passengers, you should be aware that we are not _stupid._ We are fully aware that by letting in large groups such as circuses, a few undesirables are going to slip in. As such, it is company policy to destroy the company train on these occasions when we detect that there are intelligent lifeforms on it."

Khan, Lovel and Nihlus immediately jumped up and snapped to attention, joining Shepard who had yet to sit down. Eyeing the other passengers, they prepared themselves for a fight, only to see the Maliwan employees break out in panic as opposed to readying weaponry.

"The hell do you mean, you're going to destroy the train! I just started work here last week, how was I supposed to know about this policy?! The company handbook mentioned nothing about this!" A main yelled at one of the loudspeakers, which then continued.

" For those of you who are in fact Maliwan personnel unaware of this policy, we thank you for putting the safety of Maliwan trade secrets above your own. But do not worry! Maliwan provides [ recent union negotiation has exchanged company life insurance for a new pool table in the break room] for your next of kin. They will no doubt thank you for ensuring that they get [zero] credits on a monthly basis."

And then the world was explosions.

* * *

**-A few minutes prior-**

A man was lying down on train tracks, surrounded by numerous sheets of paper that were covered in scratched out words. This was strange for several reasons, the first of which was that he apparently carried around paper with him, which made no sense as most information was stored digitally. The second involved the fact that he was on train tracks, apparently by his own will. This would normally mean one of two things, either he was suicidal, or he had decided to challenge the train to a fight, a hobby not unfamiliar to psychos, and one that eventually led to the first possibility. Appearance wise, he was quite lanky, with his clothing having an mismatched air about them: his hat was reminiscent of an old cowboy's, while he was wearing gloves and boots that had metal rivets in them, while the rest of his clothes looked like actual body armor. In addition, rather than showing any concern about the train that would be shortly arriving, his attention was completely absorbed in reading his sheets of paper, all the while talking to himself.

"Alright, so with the experience I got from taking down that Jakobs team, I should be close enough to leveling up that taking down a train should get me to level sixteen. If I take Improved Rage, I can start taking prestige in Berserker, which should give me the health regen I need to balance out my build. But if I take Great Cleave, I can increase my damage output. Dammit! I knew I shouldn't have put that point in lore, but I couldn't afford to keep getting my equipment checked out by merchants."

As he lay there, his radio crackled to life and the person on the other side began to speak, "Hey! You still there? We're shutting down the train in a little bit, and you had better be there to take care of it. Things better not go like last time when you let them escape into the complex because 'your character would definitely suffer uncertainty about what to do'. You are paid to do a job, and you should damn well do it!".

There they went again, bringing up what happened in the past. Didn't they understand that characters now starting out didn't have a set moral alignment yet? You needed to finish a least a third of a campaign before your character had a well-established moral compass, and even then things could change depending on if the GM revealed any secrets about the setting.

"Have I ever let you down?" The mismatched man asked his superior.

"Yes, too many times to count."

"Uh, alright then, lemme ask you that in a slightly different way. In my entire time as head of security, have I ever let an intruder escape?"

"Well, no..."

"So let me do things my way. It's never completely failed before."

" Fine James, but if any one of them survive and cause trouble, it's coming directly out of your paycheck."

**James G. G. Manicolo**

-He rolls 21s-

"I told you man! The name of this character is Garrok Warscreamer! I had to go through like 200 names before I found one that I liked"

"I don't care"

With that, the radio went silent once more, and James was left to his thoughts once more. Realizing that his boss had brought up at least one valid point, which was that the train was fast approaching, he carefully folded up his character sheets and placed them back into his SDU.

"Alright, let's see here, the fastest way for me to take them out would be by using a spell, but I can't do that with my current class. I would have to go and respec, which would give me a level penalty I can't afford right now. This means I gotta use a magical artifact. I am so happy that the the 3.4 rulebook of Bunkers and Badasses allows that. I mean, yeah, they nerfed great-ax feats, but the buffs make it worth it. Let's see what else I got. Uh, I get the set bonus from having the same gloves and boots, which gives me a plus five when it comes to attacks of initiative. Oh and my far-eye trait gives me another plus three. Anything higher than a six is gonna blow this freaking train to dust and I can level up! I hope there's some good loot that drops from this. Papa needs a new helm, preferably with a strength enchantment!"

Having made up his mind on the course of action that he was going to take, James Manicolo took out a Maliwan high-end rocket launcher from his storage deck. It had the sickening green highlights that marked it as a corrosive weapon, and had the name. 'Rod of Sickness' written on the side in permanent marker. Hoisting it on his shoulder, he waited for the train to approach. He did not have to wait long; as his superior had promised, the train soon came into view and ground to a halt. There were some cries from the inside, but by now the doors and windows would have been remotely locked, forcing them all to stay within the train.

"I CAST ACID SPLASH ON THE TRAIN! " With the 'spell' cast from his 'magic rod', he took aim and fired at the front of the train. The train was not designed to protect from assault and corrosive weapons were created specifically to destroy armored targets, in other words, it never stood a chance. However, the destruction was not limited to simply exploding the train: while the rocket had been traveling through the air, it had split into three smaller rockets and while two had struck the train, the third had hit the tunnel wall and caused a collapse, further sealing the fact of the train's passengers.

"Got a critical."

* * *

"Is anyone still alive?!" Nihlus called out in the ruins of the train. Luckily, when the train exploded, he had been swept outside almost instantly, sparing him from most of the damage. Things were not looking good. Not only was the mission compromised, he would have to explain how a plan he had helped create killed three of the first Spectre candidates from a new species. The conspiracy theories would be rampant and whatever diplomatic ties that existed between the Council and humanity would probably disappear overnight.

Luckily, Nihlus's thoughts of doom were interrupted by three cries of affirmation around him sa his charges extricated themselves from the rubble.

"Fuck, fuck, fucking shit! Why can't corporate assholes play along with cliches instead of taking advantage of them. It's not goddamn fair!" Khan grumbled. While the other two shared similar views, they refrained from commenting, merely nodding along.

"Well, Nihlus, I believe it is time to modify our strategy. Our plan's been compromised because of Maliwan's, admittedly justified, paranoia." Shepard was dusting himself from the wreckage and wiping off the blood of his fellow passengers, while Lovel had taken to a sitting position on a nearby piece of rubble.

"It is true, their wanton destruction has impeded our goals, but at this point we must press on. Now that they think that we are dead, that gives us an advantage." Nihlus nodded to himself, "I trust that human construction has not forgotten helpful features such as access tunnels?"

The small crew began to spread out and search through the rubble for an opening a set of maintenance tunnels, but everything was covered in pieces of steel and human flesh. Additionally, they had to be careful with what they disturbed, moving the wrong piece of train could cause the entire tunnel to collapse even further, burying them and finishing the work that Maliwan had started.

"Isn't quite what you expected to happen today, is it Khan?" Shepard grunted as he lifted up the torso of a former Maliwan scientist to inspect the ground that it had been covering.

Khan kicked a piece of tunnel to the side before answering,"You'd be surprised. Only difference is that I thought I would be able to shoot back at the bastards when they shot at me. Didn't think they'd fight like such pussies." She sighed at the sight of bare ground and turned to the third member of their team, "What about you Lovel?"

"My revenge: it shall be bloody." It seemed that even the normally emotionless Lovel was fuming over what had occurred. That seemed to be the one positive to Maliwan nearly killing them all; they were able to put aside their hatred for one another and instead pool it all towards Maliwan. Such unity probably wouldn't last long once they killed the asshole with the rocket launcher, but for now it banded them all together.

Throwing another piece of rubble to the side, Khan was close to giving up the search for the maintenance tunnels. _Time for some good ol' Torgue engineering_, Khan opened her SDU's and started to digistruct some high grade explosives, when she tripped over something on the floor. "God fucking-". She began swearing as she turned to see what she had tripped over, but then stopped as a smile began to spread on her face. "Hey guys?" Khan called over to the rest of the team, "Who's ready to get their vengeance on?" With a groan of exertion, she turned the wheel of the battered hatch on the floor and flipped it open. Looking down into the darkness of the tunnels, the four companions shared the same thought: it was time to start giving Maliwan some much needed payback.

* * *

The Maliwan tunnels, unseen as they were, did not seem to match the ascetic of the rest of the facility. Rather than being smooth and unyielding, the maintenance tunnels were blocky and utilitarian. They were free of vermin, but it seemed that they had not been visited for a long period of time, as a thick coating of dust covered the floor. With every step that they took, the Spectre and Spectre candidates made sure to wipe away the entirety of dust in the area by leaving a variety of footprints leading in different directions. If some Maliwan employee got the bright idea of searching the tunnels, they would not want to give away the exact route that they had taken.

"How long do these fucking tunnels go on for?" Khan groaned.

"Indeed, it seems that the rail system was more of a necessity than the luxury I had initially thought it to be." replied Nihlus, from his position of point-man, "This might explain why these tunnels have such an air of abandonment, they probably view upkeep of it as a waste of time, especially if they blow up their train every so often."

"That's a corporation for you. They have the money to throw around, but it's too much for any one person to really understand, so a lot gets wasted. I mean, do you understand the difference between 2.6 and 2.7 gazillion? Here's a hint, it's enough to get add on a death ray made of diamonds." Shepard had been checking to see if there were any systems that might be of use, but so far, had been having no luck.

The last member of their group, Lovel, had been hanging back from the rest of the group. He had been agreed upon to be the best person at range, so if they ran into any tunnel-dwellers, he would be able to strike while they were distracted with the other three. Out of everyone, he had taken to the cramped tunnels the best: hiding in the shadows, and taking position behind what sparse pieces of cover existed as he cautiously moved forward. However, he suddenly signaled to the rest of the group and spoke up, "A noise."

This instantly set everyone else on alert, they had no desire to be taken by surprise again, they had gotten lucky and all survived the first time, but they would likely not be so lucky again. Straining their ears to hear it, they all heard the same thing, a soft beeping. "It's coming from Nihlus." announced Shepard who was closest to the Turian.

"The hell- of course the tracker! It seems that we have finally had a stroke of luck. Lt Alenko and his squad must be close by. This might explain why the signal shut off, having to hide in such tunnels would have interfered with any transmittance" Nihlus exclaimed, but continued to advance at the same pace. It would not do to become overly excited and blunder into an enemy trap.

Following the sound of ever increasingly loud beeps, the four-person team walked down the tunnels. The path that they followed seemed to have been unused even among the dilapidated tunnels, many lights were not working, and there was the occasional piece of exposed wiring. Eventually, in a small room, likely once used for employee breaks, the tracker reached a fever pitch: Alenko, or at least his body was around somewhere.

"Lt. Alenko, if you around here somewhere, please respond. We are your extraction team." Nihlus spoke into the room, he was careful not to raise his voice to loudly to prevent an echo from resounding throughout the tunnels. At first it seemed that there was no response, and they readied themselves for a trap to be sprung, only to hear banging noises from the ceiling.

" The Alliance sent someone for the magnificent moi? I knew they would! Take that Reynolds, you naysayer! Or Reynolds's ghost, seeing that you're, you know, dead." A muffled voice began to sound through the ventilation system, "You all hold on, I'll be out in a second!". Shortly after saying this, the voice went silent, although the sound of banging increased, and after a muffled curse, a panel on the ceiling fell down, and a pair of legs fit through. "Uh, I'm not stuck. I just gotta-" With a loud bang, the owner of the legs fell through and landed on the floor,. He was covered in dust, and was of a medium build with cropped black hair. Looking up, he appraised his rescue team.

**Kaidan Alenko**

-Name's not Buck, but still available to, you know-

"Ugh, I really gotta lay off on those donuts. Hey, this doesn't really look like the typical retrieval cell, although to be honest, I didn't even know retrieval cells were a thing. Thought I was gonna die here!" The last line was delivered with a sense of humor generally not known to exist in people who had been forced to hide in ceiling gaps, which momentarily stunned the people that he was addressing.

Nihlus was the first to break the silence, "The Alliance has called in the help of a Spectre to rescue you and your squad. Speaking of which, where are they? Are they also hiding in these tunnels? If so, it would be helpful if you could gather them."

"Nope! They're all dead, every single one of them. Turns out Zimboltz gets really, really pissed about spies. He had them melted to their bones."

"You don't seem that depressed about that turn of events." Khan pointed out.

" My motto's to look on the bright side of things. I mean I'm still alive! There will be time to grieve later and while I'm grateful that you rescued me and all, I'm sure you're still on your way to complete your primary objective. You did get our message right?"

"Primary Objective? You were the primary objective. The message we received said to blow this place to pieces" realizing that there was a gap in information, Nihlus volunteered what they knew.

"No! You musn't do that ! We sent that message when all we knew was that they were developing new weaponry here." Alenko had a look of pure panic written on his face, " I mean, look, you had to have known the message. Otherwise why do you have that guy from Roland here?"

At the name of one of the most secretive mega-corporations, Nihlus was momentarily taken back, "What do you mean? Apart from myself, these people are all members of the Alliance."

However, he was greeted with looks of confusion from the three people that he was technically in charge of. Khan looked towards him and spoke, "Wait, wait, wait, are you saying no one told you? Yeah, me and Lovel are Alliance, but Shepard isn't. He's one of Roland's most successful field commanders."

"Indeed." Lovel chimed in.

"It was no secret on the Normandy and I assumed that you had received such information about all of us before we met." even Shepard was confused over his lack of knowledge.

While he showed the humans a calm face, internally, Nihlus was reeling. He had expected that the candidates to all be drawn from the Systems Alliance and out of corporation control. But one of the selections was not only affiliated with a corporation, but he held a position of power among them? Something was definitely suspicious about the whole thing, but no one seemed to think it would be benefiting the Roland corporation, so there was definitely more to the story. He would have to get to the bottom of this, but now was not the time to be distracted. He was a Spectre, and would not lose his head over the reveal of such information like some green soldier on his first deployment. But there was something else, apparently, Alenko had discovered something of importance on his reconnaissance, and it was important to discover what that was.

"We can discuss this later. But first to the situation at hand. The second transmission must not have gone through," he explained to the dusty lieutenant, "What does this facility hold that is so important?"

"A Siren. Maliwan's got a Siren imprisoned here."

* * *

**CODEX ENTRIES**

**Human Mega-Corporations**

The existence of human mega-corporations are an oddity to the races of the Citadel. As opposed to the corporations that exist under Citadel protection, the corporations that exist in human space function as quasi-nations, with the ability to claim planets and settlements, draft local laws and declare war on each other. Of course, these corporations are not as uncontrolled as they first appear. System Alliance law takes precedence over local corporation law, and the Systems Alliance controls final judicial say in rulings between corporations. Of course, when deep in corporation space, these laws and rulings are often ignored. This precarious balance between compliance and open rebellion is maintained due to several factors. First and foremost, no corporation has the military might to oppose the Systems Alliance by itself, and alliances between corporations are fraught with enough expectation of treachery, that no inter-corporation alliance (when they exist) has chosen to rebel ever since the re-establishment of a central government. Secondly, the Systems Alliance retains the right to requisition planets that have been discovered but not yet properly colonized by a corporation, a power that they use to great effect to curb the power of rising corporations. The existence of a shared governing power is also useful to corporations when brokering deals with one another as well as other species. In essence, the mega-corporations choose to obey the Systems Alliance as a universe where they exist (and thus are able to prevent any one corporation from growing too powerful) is preferable to one where they do not. The following contains brief descriptions of the most powerful of these corporations.

**Anshin- **"Health: More of it". Founded by Wei Anshin, the Anshin corporation seeks to provide medical services as opposed to weaponry like many other corporations. The Anshin corporation not only operates its own successful line of hospitals and sells highly-valued emergency medical kits, but is known to have been heavily involved with the creation of the product known as "insta-health". Insta-health is extremely useful in the treatment of battlefield wounds, enabling soldiers to "fight another day" but it should be noted that they are not a replacement for actual medical care. Despite the name, "insta-health"s do not actually provide much long term healing, but rather allows the body to ignore the damage that has been done to it.

**Baha -** "Your relaxation is our fixation". Founded by Una Baha, the Baha corporation (commonly called Baha Bros.) arose from the ruin of another corporation, Hyperion, which had previously been the largest and most powerful corporation. Following the death of Handsome Jack, the company's one-time CEO and sole stockholder, the company descended into chaos, which other corporations were quick to take advantage of. Possessing documents that proved that the Hyperion internal-stabilizer technology was created by stealing that of her uncle's, Una Baha was able to win in court and eventually gained ownership of a multitude of Hyperion's assets, including the stabilization technology that is now the trademark of Baha weapons. Baha corporation sells to the "happening crowd", mainly people in their twenties and thirties who want to appear up-to-date with the modern scene.

**Dahl - **"Because 68 billion enemy corpses don't lie". Founded by Stanton Dahl, Dahl is a corporation that claims to sell for soldiers by soldiers,. They hold interests in communication systems, energy and weaponry among other fields. Meant to service the soldier in the field, they provide little recoil between shots, but do not offer the same accuracy as other manufacturers, holding to the idea that rank-and-file soldiers require more of a balanced weapon above anything else. It is estimated that at this point, Dahl guns have killed more than the 68 billion that one of their most popular advertising jingles claims.

**Jakobs** \- "If it took more than one shot, you weren't using a Jacobs." . Founded by Montgomery Jakobs, the Jakobs corporation began as an expansion of a family owned business. Unlike other corporations, Jakobs favors quality over quantity, and this is apparent in their hand crafted weaponry, which still incorporate wood, an increasingly rare trait in items. This manufacturer has had the greatest success in selling weapons to the Turian race, as Jakobs weapons only contain elemental traits when modified after market, and deliver high-grade performance.

**Maliwan**\- "Where form meets function". Founded by Jeanette Maliwan. The Maliwan corporation is one that claims to serve the higher caliber of life. Besides weaponry, they are noted for selling high grade luxury items, such as wine and jewelry, as well as maintaining a high-tech gadget line. Maliwan weapons are always paired with an elemental type, which tends to make this distrusted by races such as the Turians, who regard such things as flashy additions. Maliwan is also responsible for creating many popular television shows, which they hide behind shell companies.

**Pangolin- **" A dead soldier can't fire a gun". Founded by Ernst Pangolin, the Pangolin corporation emphasizes personal protection above all else. Although they do possess a line of weaponry, it is the shields that they produce which are so heavily valued. In addition, Pangolin is also the leading manufacturer when it comes to body armor and clothing in general, with Pangolin designers being highly sought after by the rich and powerful.

**Roland - **"Ain't no rest" - The corporation without a founder, although Lilith Cashlin is often credited as fulfilling this role. The Roland corporation is known for being one of the most secretive corporations in existence. Of the larger mega-corporations, it is the youngest, and has an incredibly diverse list of holdings, from robotics to medicine to melee weaponry. Roland's guns are fitted with inverse magazine force accelerators, which allow them to provide more force to bullets the less filled the magazine is, making Roland guns more deadly as battle continues. It is known that Roland possesses an interesting relation to sirens in that their founding board held at least two sirens, and has never been without at least one siren in their employ. Although they claim to be among the more moral of mega-corporations, common opinion is that they are no better than the rest. One of the biggest questions about the Roland corporation involves their early survival which involved the suspicious fortune of stumbling upon many vaults containing Eridian knowledge. To this day, it is suspected that Roland knows more about the Eridians than any other organisation

**Tediore** \- "Because breaking your enemies shouldn't break the bank." Founded by Laura Tediore, commonly referred to as Mrs. Tediore by the company, Tediore is a company that sells to the less prosperous type of consumer. As such, Tediore ventures include basic electronics and furniture. Tediore guns are commonly thought of as "pieces of crap", but due to their cheap cost, as well as their unique digi-splode method of reloading, they are widely bought by militias and other forces that wish to arm themselves but lack a reliable source of capital.

**Torgue -** "EXPLOOOOOOOOSIONS?" Founded by Mister Torgue High Five Flexington, the Torgue corporations invests heavily in explosion related areas, such as mining, vehicles, and of course, guns. Torgue guns can be counted on to deliver explosions no matter what type of gun they may be, and are favored weapons of Krogans. The Torgue company has one of the most interesting corporate histories, which includes their founder being fired from his his own company after trading it away for $12 and a high five, and his subsequent rehiring when they realized that he had **not** sold the patents for his exploding gyrojets, which he had filed under his name before starting his company.

**Vladof **\- "You must drown your oppressors in a sea of bullets!". Founded by Sergei Vladof, also known as Comrade Vladof, the Vladof corporation claims to support the masses in revolution, and owns several companies involved in the production of cheap edibles. Interestingly enough, their plan to remove capitalism, involves the heavy use of capitalism, but this fact is dismissed as a "temprorary measure". Vladof guns are well known for having very high rates of fire, although having no accuracy and recoil reduction, as the Vladof belief is that soldiers are best used by creating a "bullet hell", and may be related to the fact that a revolting worker is unlikely to have weapons training.

* * *

Another Chapter down, this marks the beginning of the end of the beginning. Wow, that's a mouthful. To be fair, I did say Shepard wasn't military before he was introduced. BET THAT DOESN'T CAUSE ANY PROBLEMS FOR HIM IN THE STORY. Also, I may have picked Maliwan as the enemy corporation and added to this first mission just so I could have someone say that they cast acid bolt on a train. So yeah, the vault hunters started a corporation, and it did involve people such as Dr. Ned and Marcus. Don't bother trying to reason out the pseudo-science in their technology, I just wanted something that would mimic "leveling-up " so they get stronger the more you fight. Next chapter is going to finally introduce the siren of the story. Just putting it out there, but every time you review, a Torgue gun explodes something.


	5. Chapter 5: Lab Coats On, Morals Off

There were three things that Nihlus had learnt about humans from his interactions with them: they had poor impulse control, they considered violence to be amusing, and they were fascinated with particular members of their own race known as Sirens. Supposedly, they were only six of them at any time, all of them female, and even humans had no idea where they came from. Among the citadel races, there were suspicions that sirens were actually the result of a super soldier program that had gone wrong, but they had yet to uncover any evidence that would confirm this. Bizarrely enough, knowledge about the sirens might be the one thing that humans were actually honest about.

The result of this reveal of information had caused the retrieval team to press onward to the Maliwan facility instead of fulfilling the mission by extracting Lt. Alenko. It would be meaningless to attempt to convince the humans to leave and call in reinforcements to deal with the situation; it would be like asking a turian to abandon an imprisoned general if they saw they had a chance to rescue one. This was likely the reason that the lieutenant had not escaped the facility by himself. The only stroke of good luck, Nihlus thought to himself, was that Alenko had spent a great deal of time in the maintenance tunnels, and so he was able to guide them to the main facility in a much shorter amount of time than if they had continued with plan A, stumble blindly and hope no one found them.

With their current plan, however, there were many problems. Even assuming that Alenko managed to get them to where the siren was being held, there still lay the problem of getting out. According to the lieutenant, Zimboltz had the siren in the heart of the facility, and had connected her containment chamber with enough sensors and alarms that the entire building would go into lockdown if her breathing rate got a bit too fast. Khan, Shepard and Lovel had resigned themselves to fighting their way out, but Nihlus was determined to find another way, one that _didn't_ result in their being discovered and presumably murdered if security handled itself well. The only thing that worked in their favor was that, according to Shepard, Zimboltz was probably working without the permission of his higher-ups to capture the siren, otherwise she would be held at a facility devoted to just her. Once they got out, the man would try to flee to escape the wrath of his superior rather than risk following them.

At the front of the group, Alenko came to a halt before a door that was significantly more shiny than the rest of the tunnel. "I hope everyone's ready for a experience that promises to make at least one person laugh!" the cheerful marine began, " Because once I open this door we will be in the main research facility."

Everyone in the group looked at one another and checked their weapon load-outs. They likely would not have time to reorganize themselves once they were in the facility, so whatever they had on hand, as well as in the quick-access section of their SDUs would have to be able to get them through the place. Getting confirmation from several quick nods, Alenko grabbed the handle of the door and lowered his shoulder to be able to force the door open quickly, hopefully surprising anyone who might be waiting on the other side. With a powerful shove, the door opened... to absolutely nothing. Apparently, there was no one patrolling the area at this time. Nihlus took a quick scan of the area, but detected no cameras: they were in the clear, for now.

"Alrighty then, if I remember correctly, we should go thiiiiis way. Maybe." Alenko pointed down a nearby hallway and motioned for the others to follow him.

"Maybe?" Khan hissed in response, "If there's a thousand fuckers with guns this way, I am definitely killing you before they kill me."

"Look, when I was running from the bullets, and the attack skags, and the hateful words, I didn't really have time to do things like 'make detailed mental maps' or 'not scream like a small child'. ergo, I have a general idea of where to go, but not an exact idea. Don't worry about it, we'll get to the siren, I promise."

"We'd fucking better."

The hallway was deserted, which caused Khan to wonder about the security of the place. So far everything had seemed too lax. Sure, Zimboltz had blown up the train that they were in, but other than that, they had seen almost no guards. There was no way that this guy had gotten to the position of an executive without being paranoid as all hell. It looked like a trap, smelt like a trap, and so it really _should be_ a trap, but if it that was the case, it was really well hidden.

The research labs resumed the style that had been present in the train station: sleek with glowing lines infesting the place. Every so often, the walls would pulse for seemingly no reason other than to startle the small party and cause them to raise their weapons in alarm.

"Hey Shepard, you think there's any reason for the walls to look like this other than to freak the hell outta people?"

"Corporations like their little marks, Khan. For example, if you go into a Dahl facility, there'll be camouflage everywhere, not that it makes any sense in the middle of a city. Enter a Roland R&amp;D lab and expect to see pictures of whale squids on the walls. Of course, if you ever got into one of those, I'd have to kill you."

For a moment, Khan paused and confirmed if she actually heard what she thought she had, "Wait, what? Whale squids?"

"They're the princes of the sea. Just... just don't ask. God knows I don't anymore."

Pushing further questions out of her mind, Khan focused on the task at hand. She leveled her sub-machine gun in front of her, and prepared for the worst. The end of the hallway was in sight, and from there, it looked like it split off into three directions. One way would take them closer to their goal, while the others would just get them hopelessly lost. To be fair, they would still be lost even if they got the siren, but at least then they would be focused on getting out rather than trying to get to a particular room.

A soft thud distracted Khan from her thoughts. Looking around, she saw Nihlus crouched over a prone body, working a knife out of the neck. There had been a guard stationed here, and the stealthy turian had taken him out without so much as a word. She was reminded of when she had met him on the Normandy; the lack of presence that he had carried with him. There was no doubt about it, the bird was _good_, even if he didn't show demonstrate his skills too often. The man on the floor was an older sort, with traces of gray beginning to creep into his hair; he had a simple guard uniform on, with the typical Maliwan frills, and had been armed with a shock pistol. An omnitool had fallen to the floor. Unused, it had failed in its purpose. Khan leaned down and proceeded to loot the pistol from the man's corpse; it wasn't like the guard needed it anymore, and an extra weapon was never something to simply pass up.

Alenko had moved to the division in front of them before stopping and examining the walls, "Yep, I remember here! They still haven't removed the bullet holes from where they managed to gun down Isley. Good ol' Isley, always liked himself a nice cup of hot cocoa. I'll never forget his last words, 'Gurgle, gurgle, you bastard Kaidan, help me, gurgle', ah, the fun we used to have." Smiling to himself, the lieutenant continued, " Anyways, it's a simple matter of following the bullet holes from here to the lab, so let's go, go, go!"

"I will never get used to that."

Khan spared one last look towards the fallen guard before moving onward. It was dangerous to just leave him lying there, but there didn't seem any safe place to store the body. They would just have to move quickly before any of this fellows found him and set off an alarm. Luckily, the place seemed quiet enough that it looked like they would have enough time. As she completed that thought, Khan cursed inwardly. Things _never_ went according to plan when you thought things like that. She picked up the pace almost instantaneously, hopefully her new paranoia would be enough the placate the gods of misery and misfortune. If they got caught in a hallway like this... it was best not to think of such things. The combination of no cover and little room to maneuver would make it like shooting fish in a barrel for whoever got behind them, especially so if a guard was carrying around in a rocket launcher like that asshole who blew up the train. Speaking of which, she had to get back at that fucker extra hard. Blowing up your enemies was one, admittedly awesome, thing but sacrificing your own allies in the blast? That sort of thing should never be done. There were some rules that even corporate nut-jobs should follow.

They followed the hallway until it opened up into a much larger room. There were two guards stationed in front of a large metal door, who, unlike the previous guard, were much better armed, with full body armor and helmets that completely covered the head and neck areas. Upon seeing the trespassers, they gave a cry of alarm and raised their weapons, intending to dispatch the intruders. Unfortunately for them, they were too slow. Nihlus shot one of them in the neck with his pistols, while Khan drilled one of them in the stomach with her sub-machine gun. The first one of them was lucky enough to die instantly, the second one, however, was only wounded and reached to his side in an attempt to alert the rest of the facility with an omnitool. He had managed to unhook it from its holster when Shepard ran up to him and bashed his head in with the butt of his buzz-ax: after a few hits, there was nothing but a red mess left on the floor.

Now that the guards had been taken care of, Khan managed to get a good look at the area. There were raised two raised barriers on either side of the room facing towards the hallway that they had just come out of, as well as a more central barrier that had been placed ahead of the other two. Odds were that they were supposed to be used in the event of a corporate raid, to help the defenders hold out against anyone who tried to steal the most closely guarded secrets of the facility. It was kind of funny that in all likelihood they would be used for the exact opposite reason: helping those who broke in defend themselves from Maliwan's security.

"And now, the door!" Kaidan said as he gestured towards the last obstacle that prevented them from getting into the heart of the facility. This was followed by awkwardness as everyone simply looked at each other as Alenko continued his flourish. Slowly, the smile faded from his face as no one moved towards the door. "You guys do have a way to get through physical security right? I mean who tries to break into a corporate facility without bringing a cracking kit?!"

"Well, our plan involved a lot more interrogation of guards and tricking people into letting us into locked rooms than explicitly sneaking into the facility. We thought we would have to do a lot more searching for you, you see?" Nihlus muttered while examining the door's lock, "But there must be something that we can do to open this door."

"Like cheating in a videogame only to get stuck on the second level because you didn't pick up the special item in the first!". Apparently pleased with himself for thinking of this analogy, Kaidan bent to give the lock a try, only to give up shortly afterwards. Whatever the man's talents were, they definitely did not include hacking high level security doors.

The lock itself was quite standard for a high-level corporate lab, which meant that it was quite _nonstandard_ in comparison to just about every other lock that existed . The means by which it opened was quite simple: there was the electronic jack point that would accept whatever device was used as the key, followed by a DNA scan that verified that the person trying to open the door had Maliwan-sponsored DNA. The really tricky bit came if you failed the identification process. If the door detected that the person trying to open it was **not **a Maliwan employee, it looked like it had mechanisms to melt the door into the rest of the wall. It would be impossible to open it up at that point other than using extremely potent, and therefore expensive, corrosive weaponry. Even if the person trying to open the door had those, the alarms that would go off would alert Zimboltz and there would be enough guards down here to turn the burglar into fricasse. The odds were pretty good that those guards wouldn't be the regular run-of-the-mill guys either; they would be a corporate tactical response team, trained and equipped to take down a small army.

One by one, the five of them took a look at the device, only to come away shaking their heads. Khan had briefly considered shooting the door with a shock weapons, but Maliwan, as a company that specialized in elemental guns, would have definitely made the security responsive to such attempts. Lovel was the last, and he spent the most time looking at the lock in abject silence before his head sank in defeat. For a moment, it looked like he was going to punch the door in anger, but then he gave an uncharacteristic sigh and stood up.

"A mighty challenge. I must admit surrender. What sorrowful shame."

"Alright, look, we didn't come this far to give up, I say we take a moment, clear out heads-" As Khan was speaking, she started to hear some noises in the direction of the hallway that they had come from:

"Alright Frank, time for a shift change. Aw, are you sleeping on the job again? That looks so adorable, but come on, let's switch."

"Dude, I don't think Frank's sleeping, I think he might be dead."

"DEAD?! NOOOOOOO! HE WAS ONE DAY AWAY FROM RETIREMENT! AND NOW HE'LL NEVER GO TO HIS ADOPTED DAUGHTER'S GRADUATION FROM EDEN-4 MEGAVERSITY!"

"Sound the alarm and spread out! We gotta catch whoever did this!" Shortly afterwards, a loud wailing noise was heard throughout the facility.

Khan turned back to the rest of the group and resumed speaking, "On second thought, panic. Panic is good. Panic is where we should be right now. Does anyone have a desperate idea that we can cling to like a drowning man at sea?"

Shepard spoke up at this. "There might be one option still on the table. But, ah, I think that maybe... we should see where this takes us? Who knows, the first guy to come here might have the key to this place, and we could use him to open the door?"

Nihlus looked at him with a look of incredulity, "And he or she will no doubt be with heavily armed back-up that will alert the entire complex. Shepard, if you have some way of getting in, please employ it. If you are worried about us stealing corporate secrets from Roland, you have my word that we will not do so."

"You know, we should really forget I said anything. I hear being melted alive really isn't such a bad way to die."

"Shepard, if we get killed here, I will haunt your ass in hell for all eternity. OPEN UP THE FUCKING DOOR!"

With the look of a man resigned to his fate, Shepard pulled a small SDU from a pocket. It looked _different_ from other SDUs; it was customized to the extent that it probably only held one thing, but whatever it stored was likely not going to suffer from any digital degradation. For a moment Khan wanted to ask why he was carrying it on him instead of storing it in his main SDU, but then she remembered that when you tried to "stack" storage like that, it often led to a high rate of data corruption. Whatever this was, it was important.

"Remember, you brought this upon yourselves," Shepard said to the group assembled in front of him, before digistructing the contents in front of him. Whatever was inside wasn't that big, in fact, it only came up to around his waist. It looked like a small, stocky robo-

"HELLOOO SHEPARD!"

**CL4P-TP**

-Wants to help. Emphasis on 'wants to' -

"Quiet down, you idiot machine! We're in the middle of an important mission. If you are not quiet, we're all going to die!" Shepard hissed at the CL4P-TP unit.

"Ohhh, sorry," whispered the diminutive robot, "Oh, new people! I love meeting new people! Greetings, I am a CL4P-TP Mk. II unit, but you can call me Claptrap!"

Despite the little robots cheerful introduction, the rest of their group did their best to not fall to the ground in despair, Shepard's reluctance made much more sense now. Claptrap units were known for two things, being annoying and ruining everything. No one knew why the Roland corporation had obtained the rights and continued to produce the damn things after the fall of Hyperion. However, they were supposed to be very good at opening doors. Khan realized that this must have been who they had heard speaking when they gone to Shepard's room after Nihlus had arrived on the Normandy.

"Claptrap, listen closely to me. You are going to open this door and that's it. If you dance, or play dubstep, there is no court, crooked or otherwise, that will be able to hold me accountable for what I will do to you."

"A door? We claptrap units are made to open those. Literally. I'll get this door open in a jiffy!" With that, it wheeled towards the steel port and plugged itself into the lock. "Ha! This door shall soon bow down before the awesome might of my superior software! These firewalls are child's play! I'm through security aaaaaaaaannnnnndddd OPEN!"

However, rather than the door opening, a calm female voice began to speak on the intercom system, "Intruders detected in front of Research Lab Zeta. I repeat intruders have just tried and failed to open Research Lab Zeta. If you follow the blinking lights along the corridor, you will be directed along the fastest route there. Please be aware that the shortest path may be behind you. Come and kill them please."

"Goddammit Claptrap!" Shepard shouted as he dove for cover behind the central barrier.

"Heh, oops? My bad. But on the plus side, I didn't trigger the security mechanisms, so I get to try again! I'll get it for sure this time."

Almost immediately, Nihlus took charge of the rapidly depleting situation. " Khan and Lovel, on the left. Alenko, you're with me. Claptrap, get that door open! We hold them off here and pray to the spirits that things somehow turn around."

Nihlus had to admit, even though they probably were of the craziest race in the entire damn galaxy, they were well trained. They followed his orders precisely, and had taken up position where he had indicated. Whatever came into the room was going to have it's work cut out for it.

They did not have to wait long. They had barely settled in when the first Maliwan units burst into the room. They were outfitted similarly to the guards who had been stationed in front of the door; the first guard they ran into must have been the exception, not the rule. With only savage yells and whoops, the Maliwan guards opened fire, peppering the air above the entrenched agents with gunfire. They must have been expecting lightly armored foes, as the majority of the bullets blazed to indicate that they were of the incendiary type, with the occasional shock round pulsing through to remove any shields.

Khan and Lovel seemed to be matching their opponents' firepower all by themselves, with Lovel having produced an SMG together with Khan. However, as they were only two, they were unable to line up a proper shot. At first, the massive amount of return fire had startled the newly arrived Maliwan troops, but as they realized how erratic it was, they managed to slowly inch forward, with more precise shots from Nihlus's pistols picking off an unlucky few.

However, before the guards could get too close to the defenders, Shepard stood up out of cover, which made them pause. The air in front of him was immediately filled with small blue flashes as his shield dispersed the kinetic energy from the bullets that were aimed at him. With a shout, he hurled a grenade into the center of the massed troops, which immediately pulled them all closer together before detonating. Only those who had been closest to the blast had been killed, their arms and legs torn off by the force, but the ones farther out were still alive, albeit wounded. But harming them had only been the grenade's secondary purpose; they were now disoriented, and more importantly, clustered together. Now able to properly aim, the defenders concentrated their fire at the mass of bodies, finishing off whoever was left

Although they had just achieved a small victory, there was no time to cheer. There seemed to be a constant stream of guards into the small room. Better weaponry or no, they would eventually squash the defenders with sheer numbers. As much as it chilled Shepard to think about, he had to admit that their lives were in Claptrap's frail, nearly useless, metal claws. If the robot could not open that door, which, he reminded himself, _was the sole reason they were useful_, they would not be leaving this place alive.

The stream of Maliwan soldiers into the room gradually slowed down, but it did not seem to be due to any lack of personnel. Rather, they were stopping and backing away from the room of their own volition. _Well that's certainly not ominous_, Shepard thought to himself. Security personnel generally operated on the principle that whatever an intruder might do to them, their bosses would do much worse. If they were pulling out, that meant something worse was coming in.

* * *

From behind the rank and file, a large silhouette was muscling its way to the front. The guards attempted to get out of its way, but the hallway only had so much room, and so they were being flattened against the walls. There was a sound of crunching that indicated that bones were being broken as the figure strode onward. As it finally cleared the hallway, Shepard was able to make out what it was.

Normally, Maliwan soldiers were sleek and fashionable, like everything else the company produced. After all, the Maliwan unofficial motto was "If it's worth doing, it worth doing with style." That was an ideal that was thrown out the window when it came to outfitting this particular soldier. The front could be considered to be "futuristic" in the same way that the Death Star from that old earth vid had been. It looked like someone had taken solid sheets of metal and decided, "yes, more of this, a lot more of this." Aside from a glass slot that the person inside the armor used to see and a respirator apparatus that allowed them to breathe, it was almost like a wall was advancing forward. Thick gloves and boots covered in metal protected the arms and legs, and Shepard knew from experience that they were actually soldered onto the rest of the armor. Whatever style had been salvaged in the front of the armor, the back had completely lost. Billowing cloth, reinforced with metal plates, peeked out from beneath a gigantic tank that could be glimpsed from the front. A sleek black hose led from the tank and ended in a tapered nozzle that would soon see almost constant use. Dread seeped into Shepard's heart, a Maliwan Fireman had arrived.

The sound of shots pinging off the badass's armor filled the air, but did not do much besides. The large soldier let out a deep laugh before it pointed the nozzle of the flamethrower in front of itself and pulled the trigger. Gouts of flame spewed forth, and filled Shepard's vision. His shield, already weakened from the earlier barrage of bullets, gave out, and before he could duck into cover, his left arm had been badly burnt. Digistructing an insta-health into his remaining good arm, he sank the needle in and pressed down on the plunger; sweet relief soon flooded into his system. He might not be able to hold anything in his left arm until he got proper medical attention, but at least now he would not be distracted by the pain. Shepard felt the barrier that he was hiding behind heat up, the fireman was approaching, and unless someone did something, he was a dead man.

* * *

Nihlus surveyed the scene in front of him. The elite soldier that had arrived had completely changed the course of the battle. Whereas before, they had been more or less able to keep the Maliwan troops at bay, they would soon be defeated unless they were able to overcome this new obstacle. From the other barricade, Khan and Lovel were firing at the large soldier, but it seemed to have no effect. Their best bet was to attack the tank on the flame trooper's back, but his defense seemed almost impenetrable from the front. It didn't help matters that the flame and smoke from his weapon was making it difficult to aim at the few vulnerable spots that he had.

Next to him, Lt. Alenko had placed his weapon at his side and seemed to be deep in thought. He was speaking softly to himself, and Nihlus listened in; perhaps the man was more adept at strategy than he first appeared?

"Eenie, meenie miney mo-"

Or he had completely lost his mind.

"-my mother says that you are the one-"

Wait, could it possibly be that he-?

"-are it!" At that, dark energy collected around the lieutenant before surging forwards and striking the heavily armored soldier's legs. Normally, a biotic push would not have been that useful on such a large enemy, and would have bought them a few seconds at most. However, heavy troops such as Firemen were used to being being have sure footing; after Kaidan had unbalanced him, he was unable to regain his balance, and although he threw out his arms to steady himself like a drunken ballerina, the Fireman fell forward, exposing the tank on his back.

This was not an opportunity that Nihlus was willing to let slip by, and by the looks of things, neither was anyone else. Throwing down his SMG, Lovel digistructed a sniper rifle in front of him and immediately began firing at the tank on the badass's back. After a few burst fire shots from Khan to deplete the Fireman's shield, it did not take long for Lovel to puncture a hole in the cylinder, apparently Maliwan had been unable to properly armor up the tank without it becoming too heavy to lift.

Upon seeing this, Shepard immediately scrambled backwards and took cover alongside Khan. The reason for his haste soon became apparent: with a small groan of sadness, the Fireman lay prone and then immediately exploded, lingering flames having ignited the now free gas that he had been using as fuel for his flamethrower. The silence that followed was deafening, partially because many of the people present had momentarily lost their vision and hearing from the explosion.

"Ding!" The noise caught everyone's attention. Looking behind him, Shepard saw the one sight that he had never expected to see in his entire life, that of a claptrap actually being useful. The door was somehow open, and it looked like the robot was trying to crack the non-existent knuckles on his pseudo-hands.

"Yes peons! Bask in the glory of a CL4P-TP Mk. II Unit. We are mighty! We are unstoppable! We are-!"  
"Kill them before they can enter that lab!"

Realizing that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, the infiltrators raced towards the now open door, laying covering fire behind them. As she was running, Khan digistructed a small module into her hands, and threw it at the advancing horde. "Don't worry, I got a lovely parting present for you assholes!" When the module hit the ground, it spawned a turret, which showered the approaching guardsmen with bullets. Having slowed their opponents advance, the erstwhile defenders managed to get into the lab, and close the door behind them. Nihlus, the last one to enter, had left a small explosive on the outside, and detonated it once they were sure the door had been locked, activating the mechanism that would ensure that it would take time before their opponents could open the door. True, they could no longer leave that way, but that had not seemed a viable option in any case. They would need to find another way out after rescuing the siren, but for some reason, Nihlus considered that to be the least of his worries.

* * *

It could probably be described as the lab of someone's dreams, and could definitely be described as the lab of more than a few's nightmares. When they had been running towards the door, it had seemed to be clean and chrome, but a closer look showed that unpleasant reality. They probably did many things here, so it wasn't fair to dwell on one thing over another, but still, the dissected bodies caught everyone's attention. A human woman looked like she was only sleeping when viewed from the left side of her body, but the right side was a mess. There were mechanical parts sticking where they definitely were not meant to ever be, and some enterprising young hopeful had decided to add parts to some places until it seemed that it had never been organic. It wasn't just human bodies though, there seemed to be samples, male and female, from every race: asari, turian, salarian, batarian... and each specimen had been treated with the same level of barbarity.

"We're sure this siren is still alive?" Nihlus asked Alenko. From what he had seen so far, it did not seem likely.

"Yep! Zimboltz wouldn't dare let any harm come to the siren. They're not only really hard to come by, but their powers supposedly leave them when they die. No way is he risking losing that just to be able to examine her better. She's alive, just somewhere in here."

"Of course, that's assuming you can trust the word of a fucking heretic." muttered Khan as she looked down a row of stasis pods.

"Excuse me?"

"Did I fucking stutter? Everyone saw the shit you pulled back there on that badass."

By this point, Kaidan had caught up to Khan and was the two were engaged in a staring contest. Both Shepard and Lovel had decided to stay out of it, and were instead showing a surprising amount of interest in random pieces of machinery.

"End this, now!" Nihlus snapped at the two bickering soldiers, "I don't know what the problem is between the two of you, but I won't have it endangering the mission. Whatever it is, it can wait until after we are done here!"

With a final glower exchanged between the two, they each went to examine different ends of the lab. The thick tension between the two of them was enough to send the rest of the squad into silence as well, and they all searched for the siren in silence, with the only sound being the occasional boom as the Maliwan troops outside attacked the door in a vain attempt to blast it open.

"Found the objective." Lovel's emotionless voice carried throughout the lab, and the rest of the crew rushed to his location. Lovel had stopped in front of a large glass container that was attached at the base to a console that was beeping furiously. The top of the container stretched to the ceiling, and it was filled with a cloudy fluid that made it impossible to see inside. Printed on the glass were the words "DO NOT OPEN" followed by the skull and crossbones symbol used to symbolize hazardous death, whether that death would be due to what was in the tank, or what Maliwan would do to anyone who opened it, was left unclear. Nihlus went over to inspect the various displays on the console, and noted that many of them were monitoring an organism's vital signs. Alenko had been right, whoever, _whatever_, was in here was being kept healthy.

"Alright, we'll need to do this carefully in stages. First, we need to shut down anything that could cause harm to the siren when the fluid is drained out. From the looks of things, it's a mix of sedative and nutrient ooze. Then we'll-" Nihlus was interrupted by a beeping noise that indicated the container had been opened Turning to his side, he saw the claptrap unit had pushed a glowing red button while he had been speaking.

"I didn't do it."

Sparing him a single glare, Nihlus moved to make sure whatever was inside had been unharmed by the steward bot's rash action. However, he had moved too slowly: by the time he crossed the distance from the console to the opening in the glass, Shepard and Khan were already there to catch the siren as the liquid that she had been floating in drained away. The two ripped away the various pads and wires that had been attached to the naked woman, and Shepard checked her vitals to make sure that they were still strong. Giving a curt nod to indicate that he detected no abnormalities, the two of them gently laid her on a nearby table, scavenging some nearby sheets to use as makeshift bedding.

Whoever the siren was, she possessed the same ethereal beauty that all sirens were said to have, as well as the blue eridian script down the left side of her body. Her hair was not simply pale, but stark white, but from the lack of concern that the humans seemed to hold for that, Nihlus attributed it to some aspect of sirens rather than being from the experimentation. She was breathing slowly, but without any trouble, and from the levels of sedative in the tank, Nihlus guessed that she would remain unconscious for quite some time.

As Claptrap peered at the sleeping woman, he appeared to be deep in thought, before speaking up in an excited voice, "Hey, I recognize this meatbag! She's got an extranet site that I'm subscribed to! Her name is

**Echidna Thurston**

-Gentlewoman adventurer! Also: siren-

Yeah, it's really cool, she goes to weird, out of the way ruins and broadcasts what she finds there."

"Claptrap, do you mean to tell me you've been aware of a siren all this time and have never told **anyone** at Roland about this."

"Hey! I would have totally told you guys about this! She was just really, really good at hiding the fact that she was a siren."

"Out of random curiosity, how was the show?"

"Oh the show is great. I mean, yeah, most of the time the production quality is really low, but the special effects are AMAZING. I mean, at least she SAID they were special effects. If you can't trust a random stranger on the extranet, who can you trust?" Claptrap trailed off as he realized exactly what he was saying, "Have I ever mentioned how much I love you?"

"I'm not sure who I should be angrier at. You, or the investigate department at Roland whose job it is to find out these things." Shepard said with a sigh.

He looked over the Eridian script to try and see if he could figure out what this siren's powers were, but had no luck. He had not spent nearly enough time going through the archives that Roland had on sirens to be able to be able to match up what script meant what powers. However, at least he was sure that she wasn't the phasewalker, phaseshifter or the phaselocker, as each siren had their own unique power, and he already knew where those three were. That meant that she was one of the others. Unfortunately, even through there were only six sirens at any time, that didn't mean the same powers were manifested in every generation.

From the look on his face, it seemed that the others had realized that he was as clueless about the siren as the rest of them, and so they refrained from asking him any questions. Shepard wrapped the sheet around the the siren and hoisted her over his left shoulder. If his hand was unable to hold a weapon for the rest of the mission, he might as well get some use out of his arm. Khan looked as if she was about to protest his actions, but gave up as she realized that there didn't seem to be any better alternative for carrying the siren.

Now that they had the siren, the hard part of the mission was technically over, and all that was left was the getting out. However, the difficulty of the first part had been mostly due to getting in without being noticed. Seeing as they had officially screwed that up, actually leaving was going to be much harder than they had expected.

"Spread out and search for anything that might help us. A secret exit out of the facility would be best, but anything and everything improves our chances of staying alive. This place is bound to have something that we can use to surprise the men who are about to blow the door down." after saying this, Nihlus went over to a console that seemed to be the most important in the lab. With any luck, he would be able to find out exactly what they were trying to do here and gain other valuable information about Maliwan. They would have to work fast, the sound outside the door had been getting louder and louder; it would not be too long until the door was breached, and Nihlus was not looking forward to facing whatever forces Maliwan had been able to mass outside the door.

The rest of the team, sans Shepard who was spending his time trying to make sure that the siren was securely slung over his shoulder, followed Nihlus's lead and searched through the computers scattered throughout the lab, hoping to find some way out of the predicament that they found themselves in.

"Hey, I found something over here!" Khan cried out excitedly, "I think I may have found out how we're getting out of this damn place!"

"What is it? Is there some kind of exit that the guards may have overlooked in their haste to surround us?" queried Nihlus.

"Kinda. It's a map of this place, including all the rooms that they probably left off of their official documents. From the looks of things, right next to this room is a passageway that has a room off to the side which can get us out of this place."

Nihlus examined the plans carefully, "Khan, there's a problem with your plan. The passageway that leads out of this place isn't connected to this room at all, to get to it, we'll have to get through a wall that looks to be at least 8 meters thick!"

At this, Khan merely smiled.

* * *

To say that the Maliwan personnel that were currently attempting to break into Lab Zeta were unhappy would be an understatement. If the company had ever endeavored to make them feel like they were anything more than another body for the meat grinder, it had happened quietly and not bothered to alert any of them. Instead, they were currently outside the door that they had been told countless times to never, ever enter, unless they wanted to be killed slowly over the course of several days. The worst part was that there were several elite troopers had come down to make sure that the intruders did not manage to escape. Normally, having the backing of several badasses served to boost morale, but the rank and file had an uneasy suspicion that after the badasses took out the people currently holed up in the lab, they would clean up all of the loose ends, i.e all of the other gaurds.

A corrosive trooper had brought down a small mining laser and was currently drilling around the door that had become melted into the wall. Unfortunately, this was only after several men had tried to blast through the wall with rocket launchers. Not only had they been unsuccessful, but splash damage from the explosions had claimed the lives of many guardsmen, not that their superiors had given a damn.

They could hear loud noises from the inside of the lab, which did not make things any better. Whenever a project was set back, management was unhappy, and when management was unhappy, everyone was unhappy. The guys on top always made sure everybody else shared in their misery. "Come on you assholes," a soldier muttered, "You're already dead men walking, why do you have to make our lives harder as well? Dick move. Dick. Move."

By now, the mining laser had almost finished it's job, and the men and women who worked for Maliwan were readying their weapons. They would have to be quick and accurate once the door came down. If they accidentally shot anything in the lab, the would probably "accidentally" fall into an incinerator in the next few days. The last bit of the door that was still connected to the door finally yielded, and the door shook for a bit before gradually falling forward, squashing a luckless soldier whose job it had been to operate it.

They burst into the room, only to see that the invaders had dragged as much furniture as they could onto one side of the room. On the other side, there were several packages heaped against the wall, and a red haired woman crouching behind an upturned desk was holding something that looked an awful lot like a detonator.

"Well shit."

* * *

The sound of eight barrels of Torgue Ocean-Exploder going off at once was both beautiful and terrifying and wonderful. For Khan, it sounded of freedom and joy; to everyone else, especially the guards who were caught in the blast, the noise sounded more like a demon of hell had woken up with a horrific hangover. The wall was more that destroyed; the very possibility of a wall having once existed there had been removed. All that was left was a smoking crater.

"Move it! Move it! Move it! The blast didn't kill all of them, and it won't take them too long for them to realize that!" Khan shouted at her compatriots as she vaulted over the remains of their makeshift barrier. Shepard was quickly behind her with the siren over his shoulder, and the rest were not far behind.

"This way!" Pointing at a corridor that was now visible beyond the now-missing wall, Khan digistructed a Dahl assault rifle and began firing at the first few troops that had dared to poke their heads into the ravaged laboratory. These guards must have been higher-up in the company than the previous ones, and had shields that held up for a short time before dissipating and leaving their bodies to be shredded by bullets. However, the time that the shields had bought allowed more guards to enter the room faster than Khan could kill them. By the time Nihlus, who had taken up the position of rear guard, crossed over into the hallway, at least 15 guards had managed to pour into the room and were taking up position to gun down the five of them before they could get to the room with the escape route.

"Huh, wh-where am I?" Shepard heard a sleepy voice behind him say.

"Dammit, is someone concussed?! Who the hell is it!"

"Not me!"

"Me neither!"

"My condition is fine!"

"My status: excellent."

_Then who the hell is it?_ Shepard wondered, there were no guards close enough to him that he should be able to hear them speak. The only person that was left was the siren, and according to Nihlus, she should still be unconscious. Sirens were supposedly tougher than they might otherwise appear, but could they really be that strong?

"What was noise?" Ah, that explained it, the explosion was probably loud enough to wake the dead, and had managed to bring the siren back to consciousness for a little while.

"Don't worry about it ma'am, we're your rescue team, and we're getting you out of here." Shepard looked back to see the guards were getting ready to fire a massed shot to take them all out, "Hopefully"

The guards were taking careful aim to shoot the intruders, but avoid the siren that was slung over Shepard's shoulder, their superiors having told them that if they shot the woman, it would be best for them to shoot themselves while they were at it. But, before they could let off a shot, their guns turned a sickly green and became too painful to hold.

"Why have you betrayed us, guns? All we've done is love you! Is that a crime, to love too much?!" screamed a Maliwan soldier as he dropped his submachine gun, the hand that had held the gun having corrosive burns on it.

Khan took this chance to lob a child grenade in the center of the group before sprinting to catch up to the rest of the group, the blast still wouldn't be enough to kill all of the guards, but it would buy more time to help them get the hell out of the Maliwan facility and into relative safety.

By now, the rest of the group had reached the room that supposedly held the secret exit, and Lovel had taken up a defensive position just the entrance, and slammed it shut after Khan passed through, with an electronic noise confirming the door had locked itself. As Khan stopped to catch her breath, she saw Shepard was checking on the siren who had fallen asleep once more while Nihlus, Alenko and the claptrap unit were looking around for the switch that should open the passageway that would be their salvation..

"Alright, I think she's okay. Guess we owe her our lives now. "

"Yeah..." Khan began, "I've heard about the powers of sirens, but I never thought there would come a day I'd actually fucking see 'em in action. What the hell was that?"

"If I had to guess, this, uh, Echidna, used what we have come to call Phasecycling."

"And that mean she can-?"

"Temporarily imbue things with the elements. Herself, others, weapons. It looks like she made the handles of their guns corrosive so that they couldn't stand to hold them. I doubt that she's able to do such a thing often, but being kept asleep for so long probably built up a lot of energy in her system. Also explains why Zimboltz decided to risk capturing her, probably wanted to study that for their weapon systems."

"Ah,yes, Shepard, while we're looking for the switch, I don't suppose you would care to enlighten why this seemed so out of place for a corporation to do? You would think that with their greed, corporations would try to kidnap a siren every time the ran into one." Nihlus called out across the room.

"Well, sirens are a bit of a tricky business. Although they're technically the same as any other citizen, you'll have a hard time who actually thinks of them like that. I suppose you could call them living national treasures that belong to themselves; kidnapping one can lead to you being hit by every single other corp, not to mention the Systems Alliance."

Noting this information, Nihlus resumed his search for the escape switch, with Shepard and Khan joining in, Lovel remained watching the door, as they still had to worry about the guards catching up. As Nihlus felt along the bottom of the wall, his hand passed over a small recess. Stretching a talon into the opening, he was rewarded with a small click that resulted in a section of the floor sliding away revealing a flight of stairs: they were out.

* * *

The stairs had led to a tunnel. The tunnel had led to an elevator. And the elevator had led to warehouse, which was were they now were. They had run the entire way and Khan had dropped a grenade in the elevator after they had gotten off of it, which would give them some time before their pursuers caught up to them. As they sat on some crates to try and regain some of their energy, Nihlus's omnitool began to let out a series of beeps.

"-lus. Nihlus are you there, If you are getting this please respond. This is Captain Anderson."

Nihlus raised his omnitool to his mouth and answered, "Captain Anderson, this is Nihlus, the parameters of the mission have changed. Maliwan was keeping a siren imprisoned, and we were able to rescue her along with Lt. Alenko. Please send down a shuttle for extraction, I'm sending you our coordinates now."

A series of very impressive swears could be heard from the omnitool, but eventually, Anderson was able to make himself coherent once more, "Well that explains more than it doesn't. This fuckshit bastard sunnavabitch has deployed what looks like to be every single soldier he's got left. They executed the circus troupe you guys were with and basically have the entire city on lock down. But a siren changes things! We don't have to hide ourselves much longer! I'll get every single Alliance soldier in the fucking system to murder this fuck! Can you hold out at your position?"

Nihlus exchanged looks with the rest of his team. They were low on ammo, the siren was unconscious, and several of them were injured, with Shepard unable to use one of his hands, if Maliwan troops were able to pin them down, they would have almost no chance of surviving. He also doubted that they would get another miracle, such as when the siren had woken up and disabled all those soldiers. "I'm afraid that's a no. The enemy has a very good idea of where we are as well, so we desperately need a hot extraction."

On the SSV Normandy, Anderson was deep in thought. They needed to get that siren out of there, and they needed to keep Nihlus and company alive. Unfortunately, he could not figure out a way for both these things to occur; either they abandoned the siren and vanished until Anderson could get a rescue team in, or most of the team fought a last stand, while one member crept away with the siren. Either way was not attractive, in the first, Maliwan kept a siren in their grubby hands. In the second, he was going to have to explain to a lot of powerful people how he managed to get an active Spectre, as well as humanity's possible first Spectre killed on their first mission. In the first scenario, he would be tortured then killed; in the second, they would probably get creative, especially Roland, who had bristled at sending one of their best to work for the Systems Alliance.

With a deep sigh, Anderson prepared to tell Nihlus to get the siren comfortable and get the hell out of there, when he had an idea. A wonderful, terrible idea "Shepard, is there any chance I could send some of your men down in one of their special "shuttles"? In the chaos, we can probably send down a real transport to pick you. up."

There was a small pause as the omnitool was passed to Shepard so he could speak, "Tell them they're going to MeatLand. That'll get them to go anywhere you damn well want. Of course, they'll probably dismember whoever you send to tell them that since they don't trust the 'magic voice box' but I'm sure you can handle that""

"Well then, prepare for a distraction, followed by an extraction."

That was it! Nobody gave a damn if psychos died. Hell, they loved it when psychos died! The world would be a much sadder place if a child's face did not light up upon seeing a psycho die in a cruel and unusual manner. But who to send? Shepard was right, whoever he sent in there would be killed without Shepard to keep his 'men' in line. There were just so many options though! Jordan who got his coffee order wrong, Harriet with the annoying voice, Ronnie from engineering, Megan who kept drinking on the job, Ronnie, Clyde who talked too loudly, Ronnie, that stupid pilot, Ronnie... decisions,decisions.

* * *

In the cargo hold, there were currently three people bleeding to death, four others with various wounds gotten that morning, eleven fresh corpses, twenty old corpses, and several people brawling in a circle while their companions placed bets. Such good behavior only meant that the psychos really, really,wanted to be unleashed somewhere. The door opened, and a nervous man walked in. Instantly, every head turned to look at the fresh meat.

"MISter SPICKle-SPACkle, I DIDn't KNOW it WAS TIme FOR the tEA parTY! WHERE'S YOUR BIB?!" A psycho with a blue mohawk called out as he advanced with his buzz ax drawn.

"Um, so I'm supposed to tell you that if you get in your shuttle it's going to take you straight to MeatLand. Please don't kill me." Ronnie squeaked out. It had been a direct order from the captain, so he had to go, but he still found his pants raising several degrees.

"MEATLAND! WHAT GLORIOUS THINGS LAY HIDDEN IN THE MIST?! MY COMPANIONS AND I SHALL PARTAKE IN THIS FINE QUEST!" The mohawk psycho, apparently some sub commander, had turned towards the rest of his crew and shouted what he had just been told. This, apparent mollified them, and they began pushing, shoving and shooting others in their desire to get into what consisted of their 'shuttle'. This 'shuttle' was a specialized invention that Roland used to deploy their more uncontrollable soldiers, and was simply a metal pod with doors hastily thrown on. It could be dropped onto a planet, but there was little to no way to retrieve it, and it tended to kill half of it's 'passengers'.

Ronnie let out a gasp of relief, it seemed he would be surviving this after all. "AND BRING THE MESSENGER! HE SHALL SHARE OUR BOONDOGGLES!". Or not.

* * *

Back inside the warehouse, there was an air of extreme uncertainty. They could hear the sounds of the Maliwan troops going through the city and destroying every building that they came across. They had to know where their own tunnel led to, so if they were taking the time of demolishing everything, it meant that they were silencing witnesses and removing possible allies and hiding places. By now, Zimboltz would have been told that they successfully escaped with the siren, and that meant that he was getting desperate. After finishing the call with Anderson, Nihlus had looked around to see if anywhere else provided suitable cover as they did not trust Maliwan to necessarily have only one secret entrance built into their hideaway, but there was no such luck. The land around was clear of anything that even seemed remotely defensible, Maliwan had probably bought up all the surrounding property to ensure that no one discovered their secret tunnel, and would have kept it clear to allow for vehicles to pull up with ease and pick up a fleeing executive. While this meant that any shuttle would have an easy time landing, it also meant that it would be easy for Maliwan to surround them with troops.

"So how long do you think it'll before your boss can send down that shuttle?" Alenko asked Shepard.

"First, he's not my boss. Secondly, he'll have to let the psychos land and cause enough of a distraction before he can send the real shuttle for us, so I'd say anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes."

That seemed to satisfy Alenko, and he settled down to take watch once more. The siren was sleeping behind some crates that they had dragged over to cover her. Lovel had been the one chosen to watch over her. If worst came to worst, he was to leave the rest of them to their fates while he got the hell out of there with the siren. He hadn't exactly been happy with that, but as the "Wraith of Echo", his ability to become undetected was probably the greatest out of all of them.

Khan was keeping watch at the western window when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Closer inspection revealed it to be a Mantis gunship, and on the ground, it looked like it was getting some support in the form of a few infantry transports. Maliwan must have decided that they were somewhere in the area, but still had enough doubts to not commit the entirety of their forces to the area. That indecision would be a big factor in whether or not they would be surviving this.

"Look alive assholes! We got company, and they do not look like they're happy!" Her shout alerted the rest of the team, and they took up position to defend from assault, it was do or die time. The Mantis was now close enough that Khan could make out the man in the passenger seat now. She would recognize that stupid hat anywhere, the asshole that blew up the train was back, and he had friends. Well, if they were going to die, at least they were going to get their revenge.

* * *

"We got a heat signature down there Mr. Manicolo, sir, it's them. Should I call the rest of our forces?"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, MY NAME IS GARROK WARSCREAMER! And no, don't call everyone else! That'd mean less XP for me."

As the gunship touched down, the pilot turned to his passenger, "With all due respect sir, that's a terrible idea. I really think we should at least inform Mr. Zimboltz and get him to send at least a-" Whatever the pilot was going to say was cut off by his being shot in the head by his passenger.

"Anyone else want to give their leader suggestions?" At the chorus of 'No's and "Not me"s, James turned towards the warehouse, "Attention villains! I should warn you that I have a high diplomacy stat. Any attempts to convince me to leave will not work! Surrender immediately and hand over any cool loot that you may have." a nearby soldier whispered into his ear, "And the siren. We'll be taking her back as well. She is almost as important as the loot. Not quite, but almost there."

"So what the hell do we do now?" Khan hissed at the rest of the squad. It looked like a pretty bad situation. As much of an asshole that he was, the guy in the cowboy hat looked pretty important, which meant he was probably really good in a fight. The most common way for a position like that to change hands was for one guy to off the other, and as stupid as he looked, it was probably the same for this guy.

While Khan had been talking, Shepard had been playing with something that he had been keeping in his right, good hand. She sneaked a look and it seemed to be two pills. Was this fucker going to take the easy way out?

Apparently, whatever it was, Claptrap noticed it too, "Ahoy there Shepard! That wouldn't happen to be your special happy pills would it? Because you know you're not supposed to take those."

Shepard looked up at the rest of the squad, and began to speak, "You all go, I'll distract them. When I see you guys have made it then I'll get out of here as well. Hopefully."

"Shepard, there is no way you can handle all of those soldiers by yourself. I don't care what kind of drug you have, it won't be enough! We stick to the plan: we all act as decoys and enable Lovel to escape with the siren."

At this, Shepard chuckled, "I'd advise against that because I really don't know if I'll remember that you're on my side." He stood up and walked towards the door, with one smooth motion, he shoved the pills into his mouth and unhooked the buzz ax from the back of his pants, "And this isn't a drug, it's an antidote."

* * *

"So what, do we just go in and shoot them?" One of the Maliwan soldiers asked his fellows. After Manicolo had given them his ultimatum, there had been no response from inside the warehouse. His fellow hired gun simply shrugged his shoulders. With their crazy boss, there was no telling what the correct course of action was. Speaking of their boss, he had not taken the way he had apparently been ignored well; from the looks of things it wouldn't be too long before he ordered them to do something.

Just then, the door of the warehouse opened up, and a tall man walked out. Armed with a buzz ax, he did not appear to be too threatening.

"AHA! A champion! I shall take your challenge! And when I defeat you I shall gain a new title!" James shouted at Shepard, who paid him no apparent notice. Instead, he held up his hands to inspect them, and held the ax straight in front of him. Something seemed to be off with Shepard, but none of the soldiers could place it exactly.

"To hell with this. NPCs shoot that man! Alternate method of completion!" At last getting an order to kill, the soldiers raised their weapons and shot at the man who was simply standing there, expecting an easy kill. Almost at once, Shepard _roared_. It was not a roar of challenge, nor was it one of anger. This one was of a beast about to catch prey.

Shepard dropped to a crouch and raced towards the soldiers that were closest to him, a flame squad, going by the coloration of their weapons. Before they were able to properly register this, Shepard raised his ax into the air and brought it straight down into a soldier's face. The man screamed and flailed, his pistol going off and killing the man next to him as well. It was then that they realized what had seemed to be so off, it was Shepard's arms: _since when did arms have that many joints?!_

The rest of the soldiers fared little better. One tried to take aim at Shepard, but in his haste, missed and simply alerted the bestial man, who was quick to slice open his belly. Another soldier had the presence of mind to draw his knife, realizing that he would not be able to aim quickly enough in such close quarters. Screaming, he stabbed Shepard in the shoulder, but it did not seem to do much more than irritate the man. With his left arm, Shepard grabbed the soldier by his face and threw him to the ground, mercilessly lifting him up and slamming him down until he stopped moving and shrieking.

This gave the remaining soldiers pause, and Manicolo shouted at them to get them moving once more. "He's just one man! Take aim and fire! Some of you may die, but that is a risk I am willing to make!" His words broke through the fear that had settled into the Maliwan personnel, and they began to fill the air with bullets. They were trained soldiers, and many of their shots were on target, despite Shepard's erratic movements as he ran towards them. However, even though he had been hit by several bullets, he was not slowing down, and eventually reached the second group of soldiers. Seeing what he had done to the first group that he had gotten to, their immediate reaction was to make distance around him to prevent him from taking them down before they could get a shot off. Shepard brought up his ax and beheaded the first man he got to, and with another roar leapt onto another, and ripped out his throat with his teeth.

Shepard stood up from the body, and grinned, his mouth still red from the unfortunate guard's blood. This caused several of the remaining soldiers to break and flee. They had made up their minds to fight to the death, but not this death. Not death by teeth.

"HA HA hA Ha HAHAHA haha HA!" Shepard laughed as the soldiers began to break and run. How long had it been since he had let loose like this? Too damn long! It was so much funfunfunfunmeatjoylaughlaughkilkillhahahaha!

* * *

Manicolo took stock of what he had left. Things were not going to plan, but it was okay; he never failed, he always knew what to do.

"You and you! Get in those transports! Drive around and shoot at him, there ain't no way a man can keep up with a fucking vehicle! He gets close, you run him over!" He yelled at soldiers to get them back into order. Half the damage the psycho was causing was due to the men's panic, if he took care of that, things were going to get a lot smoother.

"What about you sir?"

"I'm going to get an aerial bonus."

* * *

Shepard snarled in frustration. Where were the meat chunks? They couldn't have all gotten away. A burst of feeling on his left side alerted him to where the meat had gotten off to. They were in their little metal boxes! He would show them he could play the tinhorn man too!

James smiled as he saw that his plan was working. The psycho chased after the vehicles, but even with his enhanced speed, he could not keep up with them. If he had been able to think, he would have realized his best bet was to try and cut them off whenever they tried to make a turn, but since when had a psycho been able to think? James would let the other soldiers wear the psycho down, and then come in for the kill with the gunship. The vehicle penalty for experience probably wouldn't be too bad.

The medicine that Shepard had taken was slowly starting to wear off, and he realized exactly how bad a situation he was in. When he had been in full blown maniac mode, he had been goaded into what looked like an unwinnable situation. He was getting tired now, and the wounds that the beast had been able to ignore were taking their toll. Even if they did not kill him now, if he did not get medical attention soon he was going to die. The transport drivers seemed to realize how close he was to death, and backed off as the gunship moved in for the kill.

* * *

The psycho had been worn down now and barely seemed to be moving. Some players would argue that he had cheesed his way through, but what the hell did it matter _how_ he did it as long as he managed to finish off such a tough enemy? James was interrupted by the a high pitched sound behind him. What was that noi-.

* * *

A shuttle crashed through the Mantis gunship and landed on the ground, completely stunning the soldiers. The hell was this?

That question was soon answered as the door of the transport fell off of its hinges and a psycho jumped out. The psycho was carrying a crying man in one arm, and an assault rifle in the other. He threw back his head and shouted, "WE'RE AT THE DIAMOND JUBILLEE! TO YOUR HORSES!". With those words, many more psychos burst out of their transport, arms flailing and weapons going off at random. They quickly overwhelmed the transports with an impressive amount of firepower, and stampeded towards the city, ignoring their fallen commander, their heads filled with dreams of slaughter and mayhem.

_Just gotta keep conscious_. Shepard told himself as he dragged himself to an upright position. Insta-health would not help him not, he was too wounded for it to white out all of his pain. _At least the siren got away_. He did not know how long he was sitting there, against the wreck of the psychos' transport. The last thing he saw was Khan, or perhaps it was a hallucination of Khan, shouting something at him, but he was too tired to hear what it was. He closed his eyes, and then, nothingness.

x

x

x

x

x

**So there's a reason that Shepard's obeyed by psychos! But, there's a bunch of reasons he doesn't do that often. Also, DEUS EX MACHINA BABY! Although I had always intended for Manicolo to get killed by luck more than anything else...**

**Okay, that's another chapter down and the end of this 'arc'. I had a chapter done by new year's, but I really wanted to finally get to the actual crossover/universe melding bits, so I just finished the next chapter and combined them. See if you can figure out where I frankensteined the chapters together! I'm using quotations around 'arc' because it was supposed to be a lot shorter (only around 10,000 words) and only introduce Kaidan, but then it kind of grew into this big thing. So to answer the reviewer known as Jimbo Jones, that's why so far this has all been very Borderlandsy. It was supposed to just flesh out the character a bit more and showcase the Borderlands side of the universe. Next couple chapters are going to be lot more Mass Effect like. **

**On the subject of the new siren power, it was meant to be an opposing one to Phaseshifting, as phaselocking (stop an enemy) is to phasewalking (personally be unrestricted). The problem is that it's never really explained what the phaseshifting power is. The best explanation I've seen so far for Phaseshifting is that it allowed Angel to exist simultaneously in two dimensions, and in the second one she had powers over computers. So the opposite of this, Phasecycling allows for elements (from the 'other' dimension) to be added to things of this dimension. It's effects ****don't last too long though.**


End file.
